INDIANAPOLIS — Dan Hurley’s messaging was simple, direct, and it landed. The UConn men’s basketball team was coming off a high, a dramatic victory over Duke in the NCAA Tournament’s quarterfinals and they had reached the highest plateau of the sport, The Final Four.
“He started out when we were back in Connecticut just starting practice, really hammering down that message,” said Alex Karaban, senior captain. “You know, ‘The watches are cool, the Final Four is cool, but the rings are way better. Trust me, I know.’ The Final Four is an incredible achievement, but at the end of the day it’s like a little pit stop for us on the way to our biggest goal: The national championship.”
Many programs and coaches are judged by the number of Final Four appearances, where teams are presented with watches as a memento and, at Indianapolis, souvenir racecar helmets. But for UConn, those may be future eBay trinkets. This is not a laurel to be rested upon; true satisfaction and mission-fulfillment only comes with ascent to the peak of college basketball.
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The Huskies, who play Illinois Saturday night at 6:09 p.m., are two wins away, and history has shown that when they get this close, they get reach the finish line.
“It’s such an incredible fight and moment for us,” Hurley said. “We don’t want to have a hangover and you don’t want to feel like you accomplished something by getting here when you have a chance to win a game and play for a national championship.”
Since reaching the Final Four for the first time in 1999, UConn has lost only one game, to heavy favored Michigan State in 2009. They are 12-1 on the grand stage, winning six championships, as underdogs, as favorites, and as even-money competitors.
This time, UConn (33-5) arrived as underdogs. The No. 2 seed in the East Regional, the Huskies, 22-1 at one point, lost four of their last 11 games, completing the Big East season with a loss to St. John’s in the conference tournament. Duke defeated St. John’s, and had UConn beaten by 19 points in Washington, D.C., last Sunday, but the Huskies pared down the lead and won the game on Braylon Mullins’ long shot in the final second. So Hurley, who became coach in 2018, has led UConn back to the Final Four for the third time in four years. Mullins, meanwhile, a freshman considered a sure bet to play in the NBA next season, will play before hometown fans. He’s from nearby Greenfield, Ind.
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Mullins is the most talked-about player in the country this week and UConn comes on the wave of emotions, and they beat Illinois by 13 points in a nonconference game in November. But the Illini (28-8) are slight favorites in this game, as they have been playing their best basketball later in the season. The winner will face either Michigan or Arizona for the championship on Monday night.
Karaban, a veteran of the 2023 and ’24 national champs, can become the first player since the 1970s to earn three championship rings.
For others, it will be a first. Either way, for UConn, the ring remains the thing.
“When (Hurley) said that, you just know he’s a winner, he’s done this before and he knows how to win these kind of games,” Mullins said. “So you’ve just got to listen to him. If you want to play for a watch, play for a watch. But we all want a ring.”
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