WASHINGTON — It looked so good in the air. Christian Laettner’s shot, 1992. I was sitting courtside, just behind the Duke superstar on the right side. With his turnaround jumper in flight, I vividly remember thinking the ball was definitely going in.

The writers on either side of me in the Philadelphia Spectrum that night said the same thing. Tim Layden of Newsday. Wayne Coffey of the Daily News. Laettner ended up 10-for-10 from the field, 10-for-10 from the line. It took a perfect player to win the perfect game, Duke over Kentucky in overtime of an East Region final staged 34 years and one day before I finally saw something better.

Something more gripping.

Something more magical.

When UConn’s Braylon Mullins released his prayer Sunday night in Capital One Arena — “stop calling it a prayer,” his coach, Dan Hurley, barked at me later on the court — I was sitting behind him on the right side, and the stroke and flight pattern seemed flawless. I immediately thought about Laettner, I swear I did, not just because of the similar angle, but also because the damn thing sure looked like it was going in.

From right near the March Madness logo, 35 feet from paydirt, off a reckless turnover committed by a juggernaut team that led by 19 points in the first half, and by 15 at halftime. The Blue Devils simply could not lose this game. It was not possible. The Huskies missed 17 of their first 18 3-pointers, for goodness’ sake.

But UConn made four of its last five, including one with 0.4 seconds left that will never be forgotten as long as this game is played.

OH MY GOODNESS 😱

UCONN LEADSSSS UNBELIEVABLE #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/IPX2JWiw0b

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 29, 2026

“What the hell just happened?” Bob Hurley Sr., the legendary high school coach at St. Anthony’s of Jersey City, asked me as we staggered into each other at the start of UConn’s celebration. Mullins Magic turned a sure defeat into what Hurley described as something he’d never before seen with his sons, Bobby and Danny.

This was the same Danny who had recently won back-to-back national titles with the Huskies. This was the same Bobby who made the biggest shot in Duke history — a 3-pointer against an undefeated defending champ, UNLV, that turned Mike Krzyzewski from the Guy Who Couldn’t Win the Big One into the Coach K we know today. The same Bobby who was also a major part of that Duke-Kentucky game, with Bob Sr. and his wife, Chris, in the stands.

“But this takes the Laettner shot out of the equation,” Bob Sr. said. “Laettner’s was a turnaround shot from the foul line. It wasn’t this.”

This?

“It’s singularly the most incredible moment I’ve had following college basketball,” he said.

Who could argue with a 78-year-old James Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Famer? Mullins, a freshman from Indiana who could ace an audition for a “Hoosiers” sequel, was the chosen one to send the Huskies to the Final Four in Indianapolis, right near his hometown. The UConn people had been raving about him as a high school player at Greenfield-Central. “He’s different. He’s different,” they kept saying.

Mullins was different Sunday night. He wasn’t Laettner perfect, that’s for sure, not after missing his first four 3-point attempts. But with the Blue Devils unraveling under the pressure and the prospect of choking away a certain Final Four berth, they handed UConn a stunning lifeline.

Cayden Boozer tried to lob the ball over the top of two defenders near midcourt, with a couple of Duke players waiting alone to dunk home the clincher, and a leaping Silas Demary Jr. — playing on a bum ankle — got a piece of the ball. Mullins recovered in the backcourt, passed to Alex Karaban, who turned to find Cameron Boozer closing on him.

“I thought AK was going to shoot the shot,” Mullins said, “but he threw the ball back to me. There’s two or three seconds on the clock, and I’ve got to shoot it. And man, it just went right through the net.”

Dan Hurley and the entire UConn bench and crowd exploded as one. “I don’t know if everyone knew we were up or if we tied it,” Bob Sr. said. “A lot of people were sitting there stunned. Then, ‘Oh, geez, we won this game.’

“I said to my wife with five minutes left, ‘What time is it?’ I was thinking about the ride back to New Jersey, already getting grumpy and complaining. Now I’d push the car back to New Jersey.”

Dan Hurley was in rare form on the court afterward, engaging players and family members with flying chest bumps and rubbing his face and bald head in a towel before firing it into the stands.

And hey, Hurley was right. Mullins’ shot was not a prayer. “That’s his range,” Hurley said. “He’s the bringer of rain, and I just thought it was a little bit of justice because he missed so many great shots.

“I’ve never coached a team where we made a shot like that to win. I’ve had walk-off tip-ins, but never that.”

Wearing a towel around his waist in the locker room, Hurley was doused by his delirious players before spiking a ball from floor to ceiling. He’d come a million country miles from where he was last year at this time, after that profane tunnel rant punctuated the Florida loss in the second round of the tournament.

Hurley was burned out after his Huskies failed to play to the program’s standard, and after he was pummeled nationally during the 2024-25 season for his combustible sideline disposition, in Maui and beyond. He was embarrassed enough by his team’s February loss at Seton Hall that he removed his wristband carrying the word “Dynasty” — the motto as UConn went for the three-peat — and burned it in his fireplace.

Hurley seriously considered resigning, taking a gap year to decompress, and doing some TV before jumping back into the college game or the pros.

He stayed in place because coaching is who he is, and because he felt he had built a roster for 2025-26 that could honor the standard.

That could beat a team like Duke.

That could allow him to slap on another “Dynasty” wristband in Indianapolis.

Hurley tempered his act this season, after his wife, Andrea, and confidants Billy Donovan, Geno Auriemma and Seth Greenberg jumped him last year. But in the nation’s capital, against Duke, Hurley decided it was time to summon his old fastball.

“Not being so cool, calm and collected,” he said on the court before climbing the ladder and cutting down the net, “but being feisty and fiery when the team was in a hole against one of the two premier programs.

“I think the fire, the intensity of who we are at UConn across the board — not just me, but the bench, the players — that fire just kept us in the fight.”

Down 2, Hurley considered fouling on that fateful Duke possession. “But we wanted to give ourselves a trap or two to see if they’d make a mistake,” he said. “And they did.”

Tarris Reed Jr. put the Huskies in position to capitalize on that mistake by contributing the 26 points, nine rebounds and four blocks that prevented this game from being a blowout. Karaban, the most prolific winner in UConn history, drained his only 3-pointer when it mattered most.

Everything set up Mullins to settle so many big-picture issues from 35 feet. The year before Duke started winning national championships, Laettner had sunk another buzzer-beater to defeat Jim Calhoun’s UConn team in the Elite Eight. In the 35 seasons that followed, Duke and UConn won a combined 11 national titles.

The Huskies beat the Blue Devils in the 1999 championship game and in the 2004 Final Four, before winning another ring two nights later. So Sunday night, there were all kinds of legacy balls in the air.

Duke tried to recruit Mullins out of Indiana but entered the derby too late to win it. In return, the kid just crushed Duke’s dreams in the nick of time.

“I don’t have the words,” Jon Scheyer said.

“I don’t have the words.”

Jon Scheyer talks about the end of the Elite 8 loss against UConn. #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/mMzmvwqRaA

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 29, 2026

The Blue Devils tried a 1992 baseline heave out of the Grant Hill playbook, with Hill sitting at midcourt for CBS, only this one didn’t land in a gifted teammate’s hands. Karaban batted it away, and the UConn party was on.

Back in 1992, Dan Hurley was drinking Coors Light in front of a TV back in Jersey, too wounded to sit and watch the Elite Eight in the Spectrum after Bobby and Duke KO’d his Seton Hall team in the Sweet 16. So much has changed about the people and the sport.

But one thing never did change — Duke-Kentucky stood as the ultimate endgame spectacle, at least in my scorebook. I sure never thought I’d see the Blue Devils get Laettner’d in my lifetime, but wouldn’t you know it, I just did.

“You’ve got to have the confidence,” Mullins said on the court, with the confetti still falling. “You’ve got to believe it’s going in.”

That’s the beauty of growing older from courtside. There’s always a kid somewhere ready to beat your best memories … and make you come back for more.

Before arriving at The Athletic, Ian O’Connor collaborated with Dan Hurley on The New York Times bestseller “Never Stop.”