Just three days ago it looked like Dylan Darling was a lost cause for the St. John’s basketball team.
He came off the bench for the first time in six games and logged just three minutes against Iona, failing to score on two missed shot attempts. The once anointed point guard of the Johnnies lacked any confidence.
Following the victory, Rick Pitino said that he was going to do a “total makeover” of Darling’s offensive game and whatever the Hall of Famer did worked immediately.
Darling scored a season-high 17 points off the bench in St. John’s victory against DePaul, making 5-of-9 attempts from the field and 3-of-5 from 3-point range.
“Coach [Pitino] just told me to play with confidence because he has confidence in me, my teammates do, so why shouldn’t I?” he said after the 79-66 win.
The Idaho State transfer also mentioned that Pitino told him to put more arc on his jump shot which would allow him to use every part of the rim on his shots instead of limiting himself to just half of the target.
It apparently made the rim look like an ocean in the Big East opener.
“I was just really surprised that a veteran ballplayer like that would lose his confidence,” Pitino explained.
He told Darling that he’s such a valuable player for all the other things he can do besides scoring like ball handling, passing, defense, and hustle plays.
“You got to be the toughest guy that makes people better,” Pitino said of his message. “And if you score, you score, but there’s so much more to you than just scoring.”
He posted six rebounds and two assists against DePaul.
“I put in a lot of extra reps over the past two days, overemphasizing it and I went out there I was confident in it, didn’t think about it, and just shot it,” Darling added.
The move to the bench was something that Darling said he “looked forward to.”
“Just trying a different approach and it was something that, honestly, I kind of wanted.”
Prior to Tuesday’s outburst, he was 4-for-16 from the floor in his last six games and started the season 1-of-15 from 3-point range.
All those numbers were put to bed with his latest showing and it’s something St. John’s (7-3, 1-0 Big East) will hope he can carry forward in its massive upcoming matchup against Kentucky in the CBS Sports Classic in Atlanta on Saturday afternoon (12:30 p.m. ET, CBS).