UConn tops Illinois to advance to 3rd title game in 4 years

INDIANAPOLIS — IF Yukonmiraculous victory of ruler was about the elite eight Braylon Mullins‘Buzzer-beating shot, then 71-62 win over Stubborn on Saturday Illinois The team in the Final Four was a by-product of the confidence that moment gave him and his team.

With his team up four points against an Illini team that had overturned a 14-point deficit in the second half, Mullins converted a 3-point shot, sealing UConn’s victory just 30 minutes from where he grew up in Greenfield, Indiana.

“We weren’t surprised,” UConn forward jaden ross Mullins’ 3-pointer that gave UConn a 66–59 lead with 52 seconds to play, ESPN reported. “Me and jaylin stewart Was on the bench and he looked at me and said, ‘I’m calling a Braylon Mullins 3-pointer right here.'”

Now, the Huskies enter Monday night with a chance to become the first program in more than 50 years to win a national title for the third time in four years.

Mullins’ 3-pointer was meaningful because eight seconds later, the Illinois star Keaton Wagler Made a 3-pointer to cut UConn’s lead to four. Without Mullins’ late-game heroics, UConn would have found itself in a one-point game with history.

Mullins did not allow this.

The teams that UConn coach Dan Hurley coached at this juncture were all different. The 2022–23 Championship team won its first 14 games, took a six-week hiatus and then rallied to win 12 of its final 13 games. In 2023–24, All-American Tristan Newton led a team that defeated every NCAA Tournament opponent by 14 points or more. This year’s group has been a mix of both teams. They won 22 of their first 23 games and then went through a strange 7-4 stretch before winning every game in the NCAA Tournament, most of which demanded a battle like Saturday’s win.

Still, in this group – similar to those championship teams – players stepped up when Hurley needed them. alex karbanThe only holdover from the title teams of 2023 and 2024 has been a steady leader. There’s a case to be made taris reed jr (17 points, 11 rebounds Sunday) has been the best player in the NCAA Tournament. solo ballwho endured a tough stretch in March, has recorded double figures in scoring in three consecutive games.

And then there’s Mullins (15 points, two steals, 4-for-7 from the 3-point line against Illinois), the freshman who didn’t even think twice when he shocked Duke in the Elite Eight or on Saturday.

After a strong first half, he started the second half with a 0-5 lead before scoring the shot that essentially sealed the win. It was his only shot of the second half.

“I think coming into the second half, I just had to pick up the momentum from the first half and you always have to shoot with confidence,” Mullins said after the game. “The set was being run for anybody on the team. You’ve just got to shoot with confidence, just try to get the best looks on the floor and I know our point guards are going to get us the ball, so I think that was the biggest shot I hit tonight.”

Hurley had a chance to become the first coach in more than five decades to win a third national title in four seasons.

“Beyond basketball, I’ve had this relationship with him over four years and it means a lot to me,” said Karban, who could win a third national championship. “I decided to come back for moments like Monday night. I want to do everything in my power to win this game and have success.”

UConn’s success on Saturday was the result of defensive pressure that held the best offense in the country to a 34% clip from the field. The Huskies committed no turnovers in the first half (a record in a half under Hurley), connected on a barrage of early 3-pointers (12 was the most in the program’s last four games, according to ESPN research) and finished with a 15-for-17 connection rate on free throws.

The last time a team won three national titles in four years you had to be over 50 to survive. At the time, Marques Johnson and Dave Myers were All-Americans for John Wooden’s UCLA team in 1975. However, that team had eight upperclassmen.

For UConn, Karban is the only holdover from back-to-back championship runs for the Huskies in 2023 and 2024. Ball, Ross and Stewart played a combined five minutes in the national championship game in 2024 in one of the most impressive runs in NCAA Tournament history.

Hurley said that latter team was one of the all-time greats, but this current group has struggled with some of the same obstacles the 2022-23 team had to overcome to capture the title. He described the team as similarly “resilient” and worthy of “respect”.

If the Huskies win the national championship on Monday, they will have another adjective to describe this program and its recent success: dynasty.

Hurley said, “We’re a tough program. We’re a group of fighters.” “It’s not attractive to everybody. I’m sure there are some guys here for whom it’s frustrating. But we’re a group of fighters. We’re incredibly tough. We have incredible willpower. We go into these games, we’re ready to fight. Again, for us, it’s not a game that we’re running around in a uniform, throwing the ball around, hoping it goes in. That’s not what we’re doing out there. We Fighting. To get to Monday night for a chance to win a championship, and then to stretch this season with each other and make the people of Connecticut proud and make the university and all the former great players proud is a life and death fight for us.”

To achieve that feat, Mullins will have to perform well again. His teammates are confident that he will do the same.

“We know Braylon can hit those shots,” UConn guard Malachi Smith Said. “We’ve got to get used to it. I’m glad he hit the 3-pointer at the end of the game. We need a big game from him on Monday.”