By MICHAEL MAROT AP Sports Writer
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Dan Hurley had UConn ready for another Final Four fight night. Once again, his Huskies scored a knockout.
Fabulous freshman Braylon Mullins made another last-minute 3-pointer — his only basket of the second half — and the Huskies muscled their way past Illinois 71-62 on Saturday to reach their third national championship game in four years.
Tarris Reed Jr. had 17 points and 11 rebounds and Mullins finished with 15 points as the Huskies (34-5) rode strong inside play and tough defense to their 19th straight victory in the Sweet 16 or later rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
They’ll face either Arizona or Michigan with a chance to win their seventh national title, all since 1999, as Hurley tries to become the only active coach with more than two championships.
“We’re a tough program, we’re a group of fighters,” said Hurley, who won it all in 2023 and 2024. “We’ve got incredible will. We go into these games, we’re ready for battle. For us, it’s not a game that we’re just kind of running around in uniforms throwing the ball around, hoping it goes in. That’s not what we’re doing out there. We’re fighting. It’s a life-and-death struggle for us to get to Monday night for the opportunity to win a championship.”
Mullins sent the Huskies past Duke, the top overall seed, in the Elite Eight last weekend with the shot of the tourney — a 35-foot 3-pointer with 0.4 seconds left. He was equally effective this time, a short drive from his hometown of Greenfield, Indiana.
After Silas Demary Jr. secured an offensive rebound, Mullins hit a catch-and-shoot 3 with 52 seconds left that gave UConn a 66-59 and thwarted Illinois’ late charge.
“The set was going to be run for anybody on the team. You’ve just got to shoot with confidence,” Mullins said. “Just trying to find the best look 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.”
UConn needed it on a night star forward Alex Karaban struggled with his shot. He had nine points on 1-of-8 shooting while adding four rebounds and four assists as he tied Hurley’s brother, Bobby, for second in career March Madness victories by a player with 18. A win Monday also would make him the first player since John Wooden’s dominant UCLA teams in the 1960s and 1970s to finish as a three-time champion.
Thanks in part to Karaban, the Huskies haven’t lost a tournament game played past the opening weekend since 2009, when they fell in the national semifinals to Michigan State. With one more victory, they would break a tie with North Carolina and move into third place alone in national titles, trailing only UCLA (11) and Kentucky (eight).
Freshman guard Keaton Wagler had 20 points and eight rebounds to lead the Fighting Illini (28-9), who reached their first Final Four since losing the championship game to UNC in 2005.
Wagler and Mullins became the first pair of freshmen to top 15 points in a Final Four game since Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing in 1982.
“It’s margins, they’re so small,” said Illinois’ Brad Underwood, a 62-year-old coaching lifer who reached his first Final Four. “Getting here is really hard. Winning is really hard. It’s why I have so much appreciation for Alex Karaban. He’s been to three of them. That’s freaky. It’s a rebound, it’s a loose ball, it’s a ball rolling in, it’s a banked 3.”
Tomislav Ivisic had 16 points and seven rebounds for the Illini, who couldn’t replicate the blueprint that carried them to double-digit victories over Penn, VCU, Houston and Iowa. Illinois made just 3 of 14 3-pointers in the first half and finished 6 of 26 beyond the arc.
UConn took full advantage even though the Huskies had two long scoring droughts — nearly six minutes in the first half and more than six minutes in the second. The latter allowed Illinois to charge back from its biggest deficit of the season, 57-43 with 9:43 to play, to get within 57-53 with 5:03 remaining.
But the Huskies answered and closed it out at the free-throw line for their fifth straight win in the series. UConn beat Illinois 74-61 on Nov. 28 in Madison Square Garden, and now the Huskies have held the Illini to their two lowest scoring totals and shooting percentages of the season. UConn also beat Illinois 77-52 in the Elite Eight two years ago.
“We held them to 35 percent (shooting),” Underwood said. “They just made more 3s than we did.”
And finished with a little more punch.
“The year hasn’t been a joy ride,” Hurley said. “We haven’t been a machine of destruction. We’ve been a team that’s had to grind out games like this.”