UConn’s shock win over No 1 seed Duke on Sunday night to advance to the Final Four connected two disparate eras of college basketball. Not only did the game produce one of the greatest endings in NCAA Tournament history, it was also a reminder of college basketball’s enduring appeal despite the huge changes that have transformed the sport over the past decade.
Freshman Braylon Mullins’s three-point heave from well beyond the arc – after he had moments earlier stolen the ball from Duke guard Cayden Boozer – sealed the 73-72 victory. It was a shot that will forever torment Duke fans: the Blue Devils had led by 19 points in the first-half, and No 1 seeds had been 134-0 when leading by 15 or more points in NCAA Tournament history. That mark now stands at 134-1.
“We fought, we clawed, put ourselves in position to take advantage of a mistake that they made,” said UConn coach Dan Hurley. “And one of the most brilliant shooters you’ll ever see shoot a basketball made an incredible, legendary March shot.”
The final 10 seconds of Sunday night’s game evoked some of the greatest endings in tournament history: Mullins and Silas Demary Jr’s swarming of Cayden Boozer conjured memories of UCLA’s stunning 2006 comeback against Gonzaga while Alex Karaban’s patient, disciplined pass to Mullins resembled Ryan Arcidiacono’s scoop pass to Villanova teammate Kris Jenkins for the shot that won the 2016 national title.
For Duke, Sunday’s loss felt impossible. Until Mullins’s winner they had forced UConn into a miserable shooting night – the Huskies missed 17 of their first 18 three-point attempts. After the game, Duke coach Jon Scheyer admitted he was struggling to process his disbelief, but implored reporters to look beyond the botched final play that led to Mullins’ game-winning shot. For his part, Cayden Boozer struggled to discuss the play.
“I cost our team our season,” he told reporters.
Sunday’s thriller capped a weekend in Washington DC that served as an exhilarating throwback for college basketball traditionalists skeptical of a new world with unlimited transfers, expensive Name, Image and Likeness deals and high-volume three-point shooting. Duke and UConn, two of the sport’s traditional powers, had knocked out two of the game’s greatest coaches (Michigan State’s Tom Izzo and St John’s Rick Pitino) on their way to the Elite Eight in an era in which some speculate that the historic blue bloods are losing their edge.
“You have as good a chance to win at a non-blue blood, maybe even a better chance, because you don’t have the pressure and the expectations or the burden of the jersey or the logo,” Hurley said earlier in the week.
In 2023, Connecticut were the highest seed in a Final Four that featured three teams – San Diego State, Florida Atlantic and Miami – reaching the national semi-finals for the first time. There was some belief that this would become the new normal in college basketball: less heralded programs could exploit the talent gap by bidding up for older, stronger players who may be better equipped to sustain a five- or six-game gauntlet. Unlike football, which requires a big enough budget to satisfy up to 105 scholarship players, college basketball teams can only have 15 players on scholarship at a time. In 2023, the average age of San Diego State, Miami and Florida Atlantic’s starting fives was around 22, and two of those teams featured three starters who were playing their first year at the school.
“You can’t get by on your brand any more. Players dreaming of having played [for a certain school] one day, none of these kids care about that any more,” Hurley said before his team’s Sweet 16 win over Michigan State. “None of the people close to them care about it because the majority of the people that are advising the kids now are agents who are looking at it from a business perspective, or families that are not sentimental about any of this.”
Still, Sunday’s thriller proved recruiting and continuity still dictate success: Duke had the best collection of underclassmen in the country – four of them are expected to be selected in the first round of June’s NBA draft – but the Blue Devils’ inexperience was slowly exposed as UConn whittled a 19-point deficit into single digits. On the game’s final play, the three Duke freshmen who touched the ball did not appear to want it for long, firing quick passes instead of trying to absorb a foul from UConn’s high-pressure defense.
Dominant play from two big men who don’t prioritize perimeter shooting also provided nostalgia. Connecticut senior Tarris Reed Jr was named the game’s Most Outstanding Player after finishing with 26 points, nine rebounds, four blocks and two steals, a performance that would have invigorated fans yearning for the era of dominant post players like Patrick Ewing and Dwight Howard. Reed will probably fall to the second-round pick in this year’s draft, but he reminded fans why the three-point shot is not yet essential to succeeding in today’s game (though it may be if you aren’t close to 7ft tall). His perfect footwork and ball fakes sapped the strength of Duke big men Cameron Boozer and Patrick Ngongba II as he scored 20 of UConn’s 36 points in the paint. Defensively, Reed balanced brute strength and physicality with well-timed challenges of close-range shots to stay out of foul trouble and limit Duke’s interior scoring in the second half.
Reed’s style looks arcane compared to that of Cameron Boozer, who finished the game with 27 points, eight rebounds and a black eye. Boozer, the son of two-time NBA All-Star Carlos Boozer, is a probable top-five pick in this year’s draft and was widely considered the best player in college basketball this season. He dominated the first-half of Sunday’s game with interior strength, clever passing and dynamic defense..
If the 2025 and 2026 tournaments offer any clue to the future, it’s that stacking older veterans may get a team to the tournament’s second weekend, but it’s unlikely to work against programs that aggressively pursue top young talents and complement them with trusty veterans.
And if those vets come from the portal, all the better: Connecticut redshirt senior Malachi Smith, a Dayton transfer, threaded a perfect slip pass to set up a Reed dunk that evoked one of the biggest responses from UConn fans. Demary, a Georgia transfer, hit two clutch threes late in the game, and helped force the turnover that set up Mullins’s winner.
UConn have proved that an old soul like Hurley can adapt to college sports’ new era. That may be the ideal formula for any team with championship aspirations.
“Obviously that’s an epic,” Hurley said after the game. “Just another chapter in the UConn-Duke NCAA Tournament dramatics.”
