181: 300 seconds

A look UConn's comeback, the Final Four since 1985, and how a lot can change in five years or five minutes.

All Duke had to do was hold onto the ball.

That’s what Grant Hill said to Bill Raftery immediately after Duke’s Cayden Boozer turned over the ball and Braylon Mullins drained a three-point shot to send UConn to the Final Four. The reaction in real time from both Rafferty and Hill was as if they just watched a stunning plot twist in a movie.

Number 1 seeds were 134-0 when leading by 15 or more points at halftime. The time and score of the game didn’t matter, until it did. And all it took was for Duke to screw up just once.

The Blue Devils squandered a 19-point lead in the first half, a nine-point lead with five minutes remaining, and a two-point lead with 10 seconds left and the ball. While you can’t boil it down to that one play, let’s try to examine the last five minutes of the game.

Five minutes

Isaiah Evans made two free throws to extend Duke’s lead to 67-58 with 5:03 remaining in the game. A second straight trip to the Final Four was almost certain for the Blue Devils with a win probability at around 95 percent and only 300 seconds left in the game.

UConn outscored Duke 15-5 over the final five minutes or nine possessions. If we stitch together the possessions in a line score, we find seven scoring trips for the Huskies to just three for the Blue Devils. UConn attempted four more shots and three more free throws than Duke because the Blue Devils turned the ball over three times.

Those five minutes began with a 7-0 UConn run to cut the lead to two points with just under 4 minutes remaining in the game. UConn’s Silas Demary Jr. started that run by letting the ball advance past half court without taking a single second off the game clock or shot clock, see the video below.

This manipulation of the clock is something we’ve seen throughout the tournament. Nebraska pulled a similar maneuver against Iowa in the Sweet 16.

Those seconds Demary saved after the made free throw turned out to be useful at the end of the game. The Huskies cashed in with quick scores after multiple Duke turnovers over the last five minutes. Once UConn applied some game pressure, it was as if only bad things happened quickly for Duke.

Here is how that looks if we plot the time of each possession over the entire game:

Teams that control the clock can gain an advantage. A few weeks back, we wrote about how Duke is so deliberate with its use of the ball and often playing at a slower pace. While UConn’s offensive possessions often take a long time, the amount of off-ball movement and cutting is anything but slow.

UConn will meet Illinois in the Final Four this weekend in Indianapolis. The Huskies beat the Illini 74-61 way back in November in a game that featured 66 possessions.

When we plot the average possession length on offense and defense for the four teams remaining in the tournament, we find Illinois and UConn both use the clock in nearly identical fashion. UConn and Illinois figure to be the undercard of the night because the other semifinal matchup between Arizona and Michigan is a different story.

Both Michigan and Arizona play fast with average possession lengths around 15.5 to 16.5 seconds on offense. How the clock is controlled in this matchup will be something to watch this weekend.

The Final Four since 1985

Below is a chart that shows every team that has made the Final Four since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams. The chart highlights the 2026 Final Four participants.

UConn has made three of the last four Final Fours. The Huskies were back-to-back champs in 2023 and 2024, and have won the National Championship six times in its previous seven Final Four trips.

Michigan hasn’t found the same success in the Final Four. This marks the sixth trip to the Final Four since 1985 for the Wolverines and the first since 2018. Michigan’s only National Title came all the way back in 1989.

Illinois last made the Final Four in 2005, and this is the Illini’s third trip since 1985. Illinois finished 37-2 in 2005 and lost in the National Championship game to North Carolina.

Arizona is making its return to the Final Four for the first time since 2001. The Wildcats won the title in 1997 and finished as the runner-up in 2001 losing to Duke in the season’s final game.

That's 25 years between Final Four trips for Arizona. For some programs, a quarter century flies by before the window opens again. And for other programs, everything can change in five minutes or five years.

Five years

Five years ago from yesterday, North Carolina’s Hall of Fame head coach Roy Williams announced his retirement. A few days later, assistant Hubert Davis was named Carolina’s next head coach.

Today, North Carolina is looking for a new head coach and current Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd is rumored to fill the job depending on whether you believe actual journalists or crooked prediction markets.

Two months later in June 2021, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski announced the 2021-22 season would be his last season as a head coach and Jon Scheyer would be the next head coach. Krzyzewski’s coaching career ended in a loss to North Carolina and first-year head coach Hubert Davis in the 2022 Final Four. Last week, Davis was fired after posting a 125-54 record in five seasons at North Carolina.

Jon Scheyer, Duke’s successor at head coach, has won over 83 percent of his games in four seasons for the Blue Devils. Three conference tournament championships, a Final Four appearance, but no National Titles yet.

In fact, Scheyer has coached the same number of Final Four games as former NC State head coach Kevin Keatts. The Wolfpack beat Duke in the Elite Eight to earn a trip to the 2024 Final Four. Keatts was fired after a 12-19 record in 2025. Two coaches with wildly different trajectories, and yet here they are in the same sentence.

Five years ago, Will Wade was the head coach at LSU. Wade was being investigated by the FBI in 2021 and was later fired by LSU in 2022. It turns out Wade replaced Keatts as the head coach at NC State this past season, and just left in the middle of the night to return to Louisiana. He was again introduced as LSU’s head coach a few days ago.

I’ve never been more sure that time moves faster and faster as you get older. Because a lot can happen in five years.

Or five minutes.

Or 300 seconds.

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That’s it for this week, and thanks for reading this far. Sticking with the theme this week, a recommendation is 4.7 Seconds: For the Championship from TNT Sports. It’s a look back at the 2016 NCAA Tournament Final between Villanova and North Carolina.

🤟 Enjoy Final Four weekend 🤟