UConn Embraces Underdog Role as March Madness Machine Rolls Into Title Game

INDIANAPOLIS — Step into the UConn locker room in the aftermath of yet another win for college basketball’s March machine, and you’ll marvel at how overwhelmingly business-like the entire operation is.

In one corner, an easel with a picture of the grand prize: the NCAA championship trophy. Everywhere else, the wheels are already in motion for the next challenge, the final battle. One graduate assistant is collecting jackets, another cutting up film of Arizona. And that came after Dan Hurley, addressing the team, urged his players to “set an NCAA tournament record” for the speed with which they could get out of the stadium, mind assuredly already pivoting to game prep for Monday. There’s joy in victory, but laser focus on the final prize, one that UConn has almost always collected once it advances deep in this tournament.

"It's gonna be incredible the pace we get out of here" 😭

Dan Hurley is ready to DIP 💀#MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/JoYAWOMndn
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 5, 2026

It’s easier to ask a team to act like it has been there before when it actually has. And much of this UConn program (and certainly its head coach) have seen some things in this tournament over the years. Saturday’s 71–62 victory over Illinois was the latest example of why the UConn program is unlike any other, especially in the Big Dance. This one was essentially a road game for the Huskies with orange-clad Illini fans taking over the building and pouring down boos on Hurley throughout, but those are minor details for a program built on anything but excuses. That’s after having to rally from 19 down against Duke, hold on from losing a 19-point lead against Michigan State and survive early upset bids from UCLA and Furman. The Husky Machine never breaks.

Ask UConn players where their poise comes from in these moments, and a not-so-obvious answer comes out. The iron isn’t simply sharpened from game experience, but also from day-in, day-out life with Hurley, whose long, detail-oriented, constantly yelling practices create an environment where elite execution is demanded.

“The coaches make practice so intense for us that there’s a lot of pressure in practice itself,” wing Jayden Ross says. “We’re very prepared for [these] moments.”

“He’s screaming on us, cursing us out,” guard Malachi Smith says. “When we get to the game, we play with that same intensity … it just carries over.”

But for as maniacal as Hurley can be at times, as nutty as his sideline antics can sometimes look, he has a rare ability to dial back at points and get the message his team needs across. Center Tarris Reed Jr. called Hurley “even-keeled” in timeouts Saturday, with a focus on execution more than anything. He’s a masterful manager of the moment, and it clearly trickles down to his players.

UConn coach Dan Hurley was “even-keeled” in timeouts Saturday, according to his players. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Another part of the Hurley March Magic is the people. Alex Karaban, one win from being the first non-UCLA player to win three titles in four years, is the ultimate steely eyed winner, the team’s “babysitter,” according to Hurley. Solo Ball, Jaylin Stewart and Ross having a ring helps too, as does the Huskies’ remarkable staff continuity throughout this stretch of March dominance. But it’s not just the guys with rings who carry themselves with that March poise. They’ve recruited the ultimate winners, then stuck them in an environment full of other unbelievable competitors and watched it continue to build.

Their star center in Reed might not have been the ideal candidate on paper coming off a 24-loss season at Michigan when he transferred in, but Hurley saw traits in Reed that prompted him to bring the big man to campus during the Huskies’ national championship parade in 2024. The easiest illustration of his winning characteristics? Reed said Saturday that on that visit, he didn’t even want to touch the championship trophy as it got passed around parade floats.

“I wanted to earn one myself,” Reed said.

The same DNA is all over super freshman Braylon Mullins, who increasingly seems made for these March moments. The Indiana kid got the Huskies off to the races early with a pair of difficult threes in the first four minutes, showcasing not even a bit of nerves of playing on the biggest stage of his life. That is, of course, after his remarkable shot that sent the Huskies here against Duke, a March moment for the ages.

“He’s just so levelheaded,” Reed said of Mullins, who he called the most humble dude he knows. “He’s a killer.”

UConn’s Braylon Mullins showed again that he is made for these moments. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

And in a game in which Karaban, often the Huskies’ big-shot maker over the years, struggled to a 1-for-8 mark from three and the water had largely been shut off for UConn at the rim, Hurley went to his freshman in the game’s biggest moment, finding the sharpshooter with under a minute to play in a four-point game. Mullins looped around the defense, sprinted off a screen, and confidently drilled the shot of the game to put UConn up seven and largely seal the deal.

“You just felt like the guy’s got a special thing,” Hurley says. “He’s a closer.”

UConn, both young and old, simply rolls with the punches better than anyone in college basketball. There were many moments Saturday where a weaker team would have rolled over, especially with the crowd not on their side. The offense went dark at times, with long scoring droughts in both halves. Some of the misses at the rim, particularly in transition, were shocking. This is not the ruthless destroyer of wills that the 2024 Huskies were, nor even as spurtable as the 2023 title-winning squad that would explode on teams at times.

“The year hasn’t been a joyride,” Hurley said. “We haven’t been a machine of destruction. We’ve been a team that’s had to grind out games like this. We’re comfortable in a possession game like that.”

It’s part of what makes the Huskies’ resiliency, their belief, their unflappability in these games so admirable. Hurley talks all the time about his players as warriors, about games as battles. It’s a mentality that clearly translates well to the win-or-go-home nature of this event.

UConn’s Alex Karaban is one win from being the first non-UCLA player to win three titles in four years. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

“We’re a tough program,” Hurley said. “We’re a group of fighters. It’s not appealing to everyone. I’m sure there’s some people in here that it’s offputting for. But we are a group of fighters. We are incredibly tough. We’ve got incredible will. We go into these games, we’re ready for battle.”

It’s also obvious that the Huskies are embracing their rare underdog status, something they rarely have experienced in this tournament in recent years. Hurley was clearly miffed that Illinois was favored against them in spite of a big win against the Illini in November, saying they “came into the game with a little bit of an advantage.” They’ll be underdogs in the title game, too, against Michigan. But can UConn, with all its March success of late, ever be an underdog? The Huskies have now won a preposterous 19 straight second weekend and beyond NCAA tournament games, dating all the way back to 2009’s Final Four loss. In that stretch: four national titles and now this run, one win from further immortality. Bet against the Huskies, and Hurley, at your own peril.

“The fact that we’re in this [UConn] jersey, when you get later in this tournament, it becomes a benefit,” Hurley said. “The later you get in this thing, there’s just this mindset that the group develops that like, yeah, we’re supposed to win.”

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