WASHINGTON – For 39 minutes and 59 seconds, it looked like Connecticut’s bid for a third national title in four seasons was going to fall short.
Until freshman guard Braylon Mullins hit one of the great shots in men’s NCAA Tournament history, putting the Huskies into the Final Four with a 73-72 defeat of Duke in the final of the East Region, Sunday, March 29.
The unlikely finish came after Connecticut trailed by as much as 19 in the first half and were down by two with 10 seconds left. Attempting to get a steal, Silas Demery deflected a pass by Blue Devils guard Cayden Boozer at midcourt. Mullins would recover the deflection and pass to Alex Karaban, who gave him the ball back 35 feet from the basket and the clock winding down.
With no other option, he launched with the game in the balance. It swished through the basket with 0.4 seconds left, keeping Connecticut’s hopes of winning a third national title in four years alive.
“We were trying to force a turnover or foul the worst free-throw shooter, and the ball got tipped,” Mullins said. “I threw the ball to (Karaban). I thought (Karaban) was going to shoot the ball. He threw the ball back to me and I had to shoot it.”
The shot was something that Mullins had recreated growing up. And it comes with Huskies now advancing to the Final Four in Indianapolis. And it will be a homecoming for Mullins, who played 30 minutes from the state’s capital.
“You play for those moments,” Mullins said. “You dream about that. You definitely had that (thought) in the childhood. That’s a one-of-kind experience.”
The heroics from Mullins were preceded by mostly a dominant effort by Duke behind twins Cameron and Cayden Boozer, who combined for 42 points.
Connecticut cut a 15-point halftime lead to single digits with 12:20 left. However, the Blue Devils led by 11 with less than eight minutes left after a pair of free throws.
But the Huskies kept chipping away and didn’t panic while the mostly Duke crowd was anticipating another trip to the Final Four. The poise was helped by a lineup of mostly upperclassmen that had more experience that the freshman-led Duke team.
“It takes strong men,” Connecticut coach Dan Hurley said. “It takes a strong team. It takes a tough team. It takes strong men. It takes a bunch of players that let us coach them, let us coach them hard. That starts in June. We run a very intense program.”
Karaban and Ball, the two regulars remaining from that team won consecutive titles in 2023-24, struggled throughout the game. The duo are the team’s second- and third-leading scorers. They combined for just 15 points on 5-of- 21 shooting
But they each were instrumental in the comeback when the pressure was the greatest.
Ball had two baskets and a free throw in a run that Duke’s 9-point lead with five minutes left lead to 67-65 before the final media timeout.
Karaban’s three-pointer – his only one of the game after four previous misses – with 50 seconds left trimmed the margin to one.
“You just got to keep moving through the game,” Ball said. “Your shot is not always going to fall. You just got to keep playing and make plays that affect the game.”
Karaban made one of those winning plays in the final seconds with his decision to give the ball back to a freshman instead of taking a potential game-winner himself in what could have been the last moment of his college career.
“When I saw Braylon, and for some reason I had the gut instinct to pass it to him,” Karaban said. “I looked at the rim and there was five seconds left, and I thought maybe something better could develop. I had Cam Boozer in front of me, which was a harder, more difficult shot, so I passed it to Braylon.
“When I saw him release it, I was like, that really might go in.”
It did go in, and Duke’s attempt for a miraculous win with less than a second left ended when Karaban tipped away the inbounds pass.
The unlikely victory keeps UConn’s quest to win a third title in four season, something accomplished by only two schools (Kentucky and UCLA) with neither coming in the last 50 years.
The next step will be against No. 3 Illinois in the national semifinals Saturday. While returning to the Final Four again won’t be unique, the experience of getting there was altogether different – even for a redshirt senior like Karaban, who is a rarity in being with the same program since he was a freshman.
“I’m so proud of these guys pushing through the adversity of this game,” Karaban said. “The other two (Elite Eight games) were like 30-point wins. This one actually felt like a March Madness moment where it was like a game-winner: We were down the whole game. For us to respond like that was awesome.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: UConn beats Duke in Elite 8 on Braylon Mullins stunning 3-pointer
Read the full article here