The road ends here: A crash course on an expected historic sports week in Indiana

INDIANAPOLIS — THE ROAD ENDS HERE.

There it is now, in huge letters on the north end of Lucas Oil Stadium, the clarion call for the Final Four. This event might be more at home in this city than anywhere else on Earth. Basketball fervor and history are in every direction.

Before the ninth Final Four for Indianapolis begins, a quick tour to get the feel for how Indiana and the first weekend in April are meshing so magically again in 2026. Starting point, Lucas Oil Stadium. We can leave from the Peyton Manning statue.

Three blocks northwest…

The enormous NCAA tournament bracket is up again on the eastern side of the 34-story JW Marriott Building. It is a landmark of Indianapolis Final Fours and will be the backdrop for a blizzard of pictures the next few days. After winning the national championship here in 2021, the Baylor Bears lined up the next morning for a team photo in front of the bracket, with their name newly installed in the final spot. But just before the picture was snapped, it was noticed that something was missing.

Ooops. The championship trophy had been left in the hotel. Someone had to run to get it.

“No one had slept that entire night so we weren’t all thinking very clear,” coach Scott Drew said later. “We weren’t used to carrying that trophy around.”

The JW Marriott was the western edge of the famous virus bubble in the pandemic tournament of 2021, when the world was kept outside. It was where those who had tested positive for COVID were hustled down reserved elevators and secluded hallways to be taken away, and where the VCU Rams had to leave in the darkness one Saturday night because of four positive results, sent home without even getting to play their game against Oregon.

Five years ago. But amid the bustle of this week, it feels like another century.

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Ten blocks east…

Something unprecedented will happen in Gainbridge Fieldhouse Sunday. The championships for Division II and  III and the NIT will be decided, part of a title-game bonanza that will lead to Monday night. A Final Four weekend with something extra.

Gainbridge got in the trophy-awarding mood just last Saturday with the boys high school state finals, where Indiana’s ties to the sport were on full display.

The 1A small school class title went to Barr-Reeve, located about 30 miles from Larry Bird’s hometown, with an 86-year-old scorekeeper who has been keeping the book since 1962. The 2A champion was Parke Heritage, which is 52 miles from John Wooden’s birthplace.

The 4A big school final game that night had a unique hoops juxtaposition. Mt. Vernon was led by guard Luke Ertel, a 25-point scorer and vaunted Purdue recruit who presumably will help ease the departure of Braden Smith and Fletcher Loyer next season for coach Matt Painter. While he was standing in line with his team listening to ‘Back Home Again’ in Indiana Saturday night before the national anthem — a state finals tradition — his future school’s lineup was being introduced 2,300 miles away in San Jose for the West final against Arizona. They started one minute apart.

A lot of people in Gainbridge Fieldhouse were checking their phones to keep track of Purdue. The Indiana Pacers’ Tyrese Haliburton was in the house sitting on the front row. All levels of basketball were part of the landscape.

Ertel scored 26 points to lead his team to the championship. During the celebration afterward, he heard that Purdue was down 10 points. “How much time is left?” was his first question. Seven minutes, still time for a rally. Turned out there would be no comeback. Not against Arizona.

Winning coach Joe Bradburn was talking about all this after the trophy presentation. “I think everybody anticipated this game. Mr. Basketball is playing tonight, Luke Ertel. And he’s also going to be a Boilermaker. There’s just so much energy in the atmosphere.”

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Six miles north…

Butler’s Hinkle Fieldhouse will host the NIT semifinals Thursday night. It’s not far from the epicenter of the Final Four, as was vividly seen in 2010 when Butler’s Cinderella run had the Bulldogs playing for the national championship six miles from campus.

Ronald Nored is the new Butler coach and was a point guard on that team. This week brings it all back.

“When we landed back from Salt Lake City and we’re coming back to Indy (after winning the West regional), you have to pass Lucas Oil Stadium and that feeling that we had driving past Lucas Oil Stadium, knowing that was our next venue to play, was when it all hit us,” he said. “This is really happening.”

The team stayed in a downtown hotel — “Honestly it was just kind of weird but probably also necessary because campus was just a zoo,” Nored said — but the players were still going to class. Butler was running regular buses to get the players to and from campus. It all seemed so odd for a Final Four.

“We walked around downtown just to get out and feel the vibe, feel what was going on. To know this is happening in our city and we are part of it was a pretty cool feeling,” he said. “The other part of that was the practice on Friday — 30,000 people in there. That’s 30,000 people in that place for one team; that was an experience I’m not sure anyone’s ever had and definitely not Butler.”

The Bulldogs defeated Michigan State Saturday and faced Duke Monday night. But at 9 a.m. ET Monday morning, just 12 hours before tipoff, Nored was in his early education class.  “There was zero class being done. I mean everything was about the game. I started that day day going to class and then…”

And then he hopped on the bus back downtown for film sessions, shoot-around, pre-game meal, and for the title game that Butler nearly won. Not until Gordon Hayward’s last shot bounced off the rim did Duke escape 61-59.

Afterward, Nored went to his grandmother’s house only a few blocks from campus, where friends and family had gathered. He thanked them for coming.

Arizona, UConn, Illinois and Michigan should have wonderful experiences in an Indianapolis Final Four this weekend. But none will be quite like Butler 16 years ago.

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Thirty miles east…

As the sign says, Greenfield Central High School is home of the Cougars. Also home of Braylon Mullins, who just joined the March hall of fame with his lightning bolt 3-pointer that sent UConn to the Final Four over Duke.

Fifteen hours after that shot made the NCAA tournament gasp and had causal fans wondering who this Mullins kid was, some who know him gathered in the high school gym to talk about what had just happened.

Tucker Brown is a friend and former teammate.

“I was at my girlfriend’s house and we were watching it we started screaming so loud her parents came down and thought something was wrong.”

His first class Monday morning was psychology. “My teacher showed the shot for anyone who hadn’t seen it yet. Which was nobody.”

Isaac Roberts is another friend and former teammate.

“You just never think something like that would ever happen to someone you know and grew up with, so it is just crazy to watch that happen. You scroll on Facebook last night and today and it’s Braylon Mullins…Braylon Mullins…Braylon Mullins.”

Luke Meredith was Mullins’ coach at Greenfield Central. He was watching in his basement. He was wearing a blue UConn top Monday morning.

“Just one of those things I’ve seen him do it a million times. Once it left his hands you knew it was butter. Our whole house, our whole family has been watching him since he was a little kid so it was pretty surreal.

“When I texted him later I said ‘you deserve this.’ He was in here with me every single morning for four years, shooting by himself, with no one in the stands.

“Like we say all the time, he’s just a kid from Greenfield, grew up off Fifth Street right around the corner. How many kids now that are in the top 100 are going to prep school and not going to their public school with the kids that they grew up with?”

There was one more former teammate in the gym Monday morning. Cole Mullins. He was home Sunday night watching his younger brother become famous.

“We were a little behind (on the telecast ) so people started texting me and saying ‘Braylon just did something crazy.’ We knew he hit a shot, we didn’t know how far.”

Must have felt other-worldly to watch.

“It’s just me and my brother, I grew up with him my whole life. He just hit a crazy shot on a big stage.”

Cole has a twin brother Clay. Both are good shooters, as is father Josh. Not to mention Braylon. It’s a competitive house. “He doesn’t like to lose,” Cole said of his older brother. “If he’s losing, he’s mad.”

In basketball? “Honestly, anything,”

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Meredith said a terrific competition would be a Mullins family game of h-o-r-s-e. Cole pondered the question if he could beat the brother who broke Duke’s heart. “It would depend really on  what he’d do. Now he does something like a dunk, which is dumb…but if he’s just shooting up 3’s, I can win.”

For those who have known Mullins for years and shared countless games with him, none were surprised by what happened in that last historic second in Washington.

Not Brown. “He’s hit further shots than that. His junior year at Southport he hit one from the opposite free throw line to go in at halftime, so he’s known for hitting crazy shots.”

Not Roberts. “In practice he’d always shoot these crazy shorts and they would go in.

“He’s real confident like that so he’s not going to pass up that wide open shot.”

Not his old coach. “To be at that moment on that stage against Duke, he deserves that because he’s done it a million times.”

It is unanimous among all the assembled, the vote for biggest shot they had seen Braylon Mullins hit before Sunday. It was a buzzer-beater his junior season to win a game and also break the school scoring record with 52 points. All in one fell swoop. There’s a picture of the shot on one wall in the gym. So are his Mr. Basketball and McDonald’s All-American jerseys.

Meredith had another memory of another shot, from Mullins’ last high school game in the state tournament. This one would have won a game at the buzzer of regulation but didn’t go in. Greenfield Central eventually lost in double overtime. “He had literally that exact same shot against Mt. Vernon last year. Isn’t it funny how things work out, the basketball gods or whatever? To get that same shot and he hits it.”

Now everyone at Greenfield Central is looking at the rest of the week. Open practice is Friday.  “I’m sure we’ll have some kids who miss a little bit of school time Friday,” athletic director Jared Manning said.  Cole will be there with the family Saturday to watch UConn play Illinois. Meredith plans to get tickets, too. The others will be watching from somewhere.

“Last night when he was on the plane I told him I’d look at the ticket prices, I’ll try to make it,” Brown said. “If they’re too expensive, go do your thing.”

It’s Final Four week. In cities big and small, Indiana is ready, as usual.