The headline is a quote from Dan Hurley’s mom, straight from this incredible video posted by the NCAA featuring raw footage from basically every camera they had in the building Sunday night. At 1:47, we see the camera assigned to capture viral family reactions pan quickly from Carlos Boozer to Hurley’s parents. (Smart move, we prefer joy to sadness.)

They couldn’t use the Hurley footage on live TV, though.

I particularly like the part where the two Hurleys simultaneously yell HOLY SHIT at the 2:01 mark. Put Synchronized Cursing in the Olympics. (Dad is a Basketball Hall of Famer, in case you didn’t know! I don’t think anybody who followed his legendary high school coaching career is surprised to see him cursing.)

UConn beat Duke in the Elite Eight thanks to an all-time March Madness moment: Braylon Mullins’ 35-foot game-winning buzzer-beater to cap off a 19-point comeback against the best team in college basketball. It’s the type of shot you see and instantly know you’ll be watching replays of it for the rest of your life. The Huskies move on to the Final Four; Cameron Boozer moves on to the NBA Draft.

Here’s a recap of that game — and also, everything else that happened this weekend in the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments.

– Rodger Sherman

Let’s watch it again.

Unfortunately, none of this is possible without phenomenally poor decision-making by Duke freshman point guard Cayden Boozer. He could have done just about anything else and Duke would have won the game.

He could’ve dribbled into the acres of empty space on the court. He could’ve called timeout if he was under pressure, which to be honest, he wasn’t. He could’ve simply done nothing! Duke didn’t even need to get the ball across half-court, since it inbounded the ball with exactly 10 seconds left. Boozer’s decision to pick up his dribble and try a jump-pass through two defenders is the type of risky choice a player makes when they’re desperately trying to crawl out of a deep hole — but Duke had the ball and the lead and the clock on their side.

But as easy as it is to single out a freshman point guard making a foolish play — and he’s probably going to be singled out for it for the rest of his career — Duke’s issues here are clearly much bigger.

In last year’s NCAA Tournament, top-seeded Duke suffered an epic collapse in its Final Four game against Houston, blowing a 14-point lead in the second half by hitting just one field goal and committing six of their seven turnovers in the game’s final 10 minutes. Duke actually had a six-point lead and the ball with 50 seconds to go, but a series of poor decisions, killer turnovers, and missed free throws cost them. Here’s the win probability chart from that game.

This year’s Duke team was even better than last year’s. It only lost twice, blowing a 17-point second-half lead against Texas Tech, and a 12-point second-half lead against North Carolina. Here are the win probability charts from those games:

(Good to see Duke still has a 0.1 percent chance of beating Texas Tech, according to the chart.)

And then there was Sunday. Duke blew a 19-point lead to UConn in the Elite Eight. You’ll never believe what the win probability chart looks like:

This game had a flukey finish, sure. But while one meltdown can be chalked up to bad luck, and two is a coincidence, three times is a trend. Four times is holy crap Jon Scheyer do you even practice how to break the press? There is only one way this team ever loses — and it keeps losing in that specific way, over and over again.

Duke was the best team in college basketball this year. It was the best team in college basketball last year. The Blue Devils struck lightning twice with back-to-back superstars in Cooper Flagg and Cameron Boozer, who were the first two freshmen to ever win Naismith Player of the Year in back-to-back years. (Boozer hasn’t officially won it yet, but he will.) Duke didn’t win a national championship with either. It didn’t even reach the championship game. College players aren’t on multi-year deals. Duke had one shot to win with Flagg and one shot to win with Boozer, and squandered them both.

Duke needs to figure out how to close these games. I’m not saying “Duke needs to be more clutch,” as if that’s a button it can press. I’m saying that, clearly, the Blue Devils are the kings of Regular Basketball. They’re the best team in the nation in minutes 1-35. But late-game hoops is different, and not just because of vibes. The plays you run in the closing moments of tight games are literally different, as are the skillsets required to execute them. You can have the best half-court offense in basketball, but that doesn’t help when you need to inbound the ball and get it across half-court against the press.

I think Jon Scheyer has been an incredible coach for Duke so far. His job was to keep the program at an elite level after Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement, and he has surpassed any reasonable expectation you could have for a first-time head coach. But Duke’s regular collapses are a coaching problem. Scheyer has many months ahead to figure out how to get better in those final seconds.

My wife and I moved to Connecticut last year, and she decided to fill out her bracket with UConn as the national champion. (I, a basketball expert, picked Houston, which failed to make it out of the Sweet 16.) The NCAA Tournament is pretty much the one sporting event she likes watching with me, so yesterday I ordered a bunch of pizza and we watched her pick make the Final Four in spectacular fashion.

So today, when I’m done writing this newsletter, I’m going to go to the Homefield Apparel website and buy her the perfect shirt to commemorate this incredible moment: The Pizza Dog Tee.

Don’t tell her about this. She doesn’t know she’s getting a Pizza Dog shirt.

OK, obviously we had to lead with dunking on Duke — but now let’s talk about UConn!

I’ve already posted multiple videos of the shot, so let’s watch CBS basketball crew watching the big shot in the studio. I love the way they celebrated like nuts and then Matt Norlander immediately got back to the computer to Post. True poster there.

Arizona is going to the Final Four for the first time since its all-time Remember Some Guys squad in 2001. (Gilbert Arenas! Richard Jefferson! Luke Walton!) It feels like 5-star freshman Koa Peat has finally showed up for Arizona: he’s got back-to-back 20-point games after hitting that number just five times in the regular season.

This feels like the end of an era for Purdue, which made the 2023 national championship game. The wildest stat of the 2026 college hoops season is that only 22 seniors in all of college basketball spent four years at the same high-major program, and three of them started for the Boilermakers (Braden Smith, Trey Kaufman-Renn, and Fletcher Loyer.)

The Illini are going to the Final Four for the first time since their all-time Remember Some Guys squad in 2005. (Deron Williams! Dee Brown! Luther Head!)

Iowa took a 10-point lead in the first half, but Illinois was just too tall for the Hawkeyes’ dream run to continue. Seriously, they’re huge. Watching this team thrive with players from Serbia, Montenegro, and Croatia really makes you wonder … what if all those countries were one c—(Editor’s note: After feedback to our Olympics coverage, it is now the official policy of Sports! to simply say that all national borders should stay exactly where they are now, forever and ever for the rest of time.)

Also huge? Michigan. I am starting to think Being Huge is important in basketball.

Sarah Strong out-stole Hannah Hidalgo in this one, finishing with 21 points, seven rebounds, five blocks, and three steals. I think she’s the best offensive player and the best defensive player in the country. UConn has now made both the men’s and women’s Final Fours in the same year six times. It’s now crunch time for Jordan’s Furniture in New Haven, which promised to refund all furniture bought in February if UConn makes both the men’s and women’s national championship games.

Duke actually led this one at halftime — just the second time UCLA has trailed at the half all season — but got outscored 39-19 in the second half.

What a game for the tag team of Olivia Miles and Marta Suarez. Literally every one of TCU’s points was either scored or assisted by those two. Suarez had a career-high 33 points; Miles had 28 and eight assists.

The Horned Frogs have totally revamped their program with high-impact transfers. Last year they made the first Elite Eight in school history with Hailey Van Lith and Sedona Prince, both of whom graduated. They reloaded with Miles from Notre Dame and Suarez from Tennessee and Cal. Their rotation is basically all upperclassmen and transfers from other high-major programs.

The Wolverines went on a 16-0 run in the second quarter and a 17-0 run in the third quarter. It was a highlight game for one of the most unique players in college basketball, Michigan guard Brooke Quarles Daniels, a sneaky 5-foot-6 guard who somehow had seven offensive rebounds.

Also, I really liked Kim Barnes Arico’s decision to coach in a Michigan softball jersey. I love when coaches wear anything that isn’t a suit or team gear.

I think the Gamecocks are a level below the other 1-seeds remaining in the tournament, but Saturday’s game showed their path to victory: they shot 71 percent from three against Oklahoma, with their starting lineup going 9-for-10 from deep. I’m not saying that’s repeatable, but the Gamecocks were seventh in the nation in three-point percentage this season, above everybody but UConn.

For a second there, it looked like Longhorns point guard Rori Harmon might surpass Hannah Hidalgo’s points-rebounds-steals triple-double — she had nine points, five rebounds, five assists, and six steals at halftime — but with the game out of hand she fell short in everything but points.

(And to answer Martha’s question from the comments: Kentucky gets the Union Jack because they’re UK!)

Sunday was also the anniversary of another game-winning shot and poor late-game turnover — Michael Jordan in the 1982 championship game.

Sorry, posting this feels even meaner to Duke fans. I will make it up to you, I promise!