By R.L. Bynum
While UConn freshman Braylon Mullins joined UNC’s Seth Trimble in Duke nightmares for their last‑second daggers, Sunday night’s collapse extended the Blue Devils’ championship-game drought as they join UNC in some infamy.
The Blue Devils haven’t reached the championship game since winning the title in 2015. By contrast, UNC has played for the championship three times since then: 2016, 2017 (when the Tar Heels won the title) and 2022. The latter run to the final included the national semifinal win that ended Coach Mike Krzyzewski’s coaching career.
Mullins’ 3-pointer, with his feet next to the March Madness logo, beat Duke 73–72 in the East Regional final in Washington, rippling the net with 0.4 of a second left. That’s the same time stamp of Trimble’s memorable corner three that lifted UNC over Duke 71–68 on Feb. 7 at the Smith Center.
Mullins is the first player to hit a last-second shot to send his team to the Final Four since Luke Maye’s shot beat Kentucky in 2017 to send the Tar Heels to Glendale, Ariz., where they won the national title.
There was more symmetry. UNC never led until Trimble’s shot. Against Duke on Sunday, UConn’s only previous lead was a 50-second 2–0 edge.
Duke’s win probability, according to ESPN, peaked at 95.1% in its loss at UNC and at 98.7% in Sunday’s loss to the Huskies.
Not so good for Carolina is that Duke’s meltdown in blowing a 19-point second-half lead came 10 days after the Tar Heels lost to VCU in the first round, 82–79 in overtime, after also giving up a 19-point lead.
It gets worse, though, for UNC.
Duke has become the third team since 2015 to squander a lead of at least 14 points in the second half of an NCAA tournament game. The other two were UNC teams: in 2022, when the Tar Heels led Kansas by 16 points late in the first half in the NCAA tournament championship game (the largest comeback in a title game) and in that loss to VCU (tied for the seventh-largest comeback in an NCAA tournament game).
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Photo via @UConnMBB
