Braylon Mullins caught the loose ball near midcourt, glanced at the clock — three seconds — and let it fly from 35 feet. The ball ripped through the net with four-tenths of a second remaining, and Capital One Arena in Washington detonated. UConn 73, Duke 72. The No. 1 overall seed, the team that had lost three games all season, was finished — undone by a deflected pass and a freshman who had missed five of his first six three-point attempts on the night.

Ten seconds earlier, Duke had the ball and a two-point lead. They needed only to inbound and survive. Dame Sarr caught the pass and found Cayden Boozer near halfcourt, but UConn's Silas Demary Jr. lunged and deflected the ball free. Mullins scooped it up, flipped it to Alex Karaban, got it right back, and pulled the trigger. It was UConn's first lead since the game's opening minute. "I looked up at the clock and it said five seconds," Mullins said afterward. "I tried to get the ball to somebody who had made one in the game. And he wanted to throw it back. So I saw three seconds and it was the last shot."

The shot will be replayed for decades, but UConn doesn't reach that moment without Tarris Reed Jr. carrying the Huskies on his back for 32 punishing minutes. Twenty-six points on 10-of-16 shooting, 9 rebounds, 4 blocks — Reed was the gravitational center of UConn's second-half comeback, scoring in the post over Cameron Boozer, stepping out to the mid-range, and protecting the rim when Duke tried to answer. His dunk midway through the second half sparked a 16-6 run that trimmed a 14-point deficit to seven and made the rest of it possible.

Alex Karaban had been invisible for most of the game, missing his first five three-point attempts while Duke's length smothered his looks. Then, with UConn trailing 70-67 after a steal by Reed, Karaban caught a swing pass and buried a 26-footer to cut the lead to one. It was his only make from deep all night. The timing was everything. Dan Hurley called Mullins "a rare human being" after the game, but it was the collective refusal to concede — from Reed's post dominance to Karaban's one big moment to Demary's game-saving deflection — that made the ending possible.

Cameron Boozer was magnificent and it did not matter. His 27 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks were everything a No. 1 seed could ask from its best player in an Elite Eight game. Cayden Boozer added 15 points, 6 assists, and a perfect 6-of-6 from the free-throw line. For forty minutes, the Boozer twins did their part. Then, with the game in his hands, Cayden's pass near halfcourt was deflected, and everything Duke had built — a 35-3 record, a 19-point first-half lead, a 27-0 historical record when leading by 15 or more at the break in tournament play — evaporated in 0.4 seconds.

Duke committed 13 turnovers to UConn's 5, and the disparity told the real story. Cameron Boozer alone had 4 giveaways. Cayden had 3, including the one that will haunt Durham for years. Caleb Foster added 3 turnovers and zero points. Jon Scheyer stood at the podium afterward and said, "I don't have the words to process what happened." He wasn't alone. Duke held a 44-29 advantage at the half; UConn matched that exact margin in reverse — outscoring the Blue Devils 44-28 after the break.

Silas Demary Jr. scored 11 points and grabbed 5 rebounds, but his most important contribution won't show up in any box score column. His deflection on Cayden Boozer's pass in the final seconds created the possession that ended Duke's season. Demary had been physical all night, and when UConn went to its press with ten seconds left, his instinct to jump the passing lane turned a routine inbound into a catastrophe. Solo Ball added 10 points and 2 steals, while Malachi Smith came off the bench with 9 points on efficient 4-of-7 shooting that helped UConn hang around during stretches when the starters couldn't buy a basket. On Duke's side, Dame Sarr's 10 points on 4-of-5 shooting looked like a footnote after the buzzer sounded, and Isaiah Evans's 7 points represented a sharp decline from his season average — a quiet night from a player Duke needed to be loud.

The CHD Scout prediction had Duke winning by 7.3 points, a line that felt generous to UConn given how dominant the Blue Devils had been all season. At halftime, the model's logic looked bulletproof — Duke led by 15 on 52-percent shooting, and UConn was bricking everything from beyond the arc. The Huskies finished 5-for-23 from three-point range, a 22-percent clip that should lose you any game. Instead, UConn won on a three. That absurdity — shooting your worst from deep all season and winning because a freshman launched one from the logo at the buzzer — is why the NCAA Tournament remains the most unpredictable event in American sports.

UConn advances to the Final Four for the third time in four seasons, a stretch of sustained excellence that has cemented Dan Hurley's program among the sport's true powers. The Huskies will face Illinois in Indianapolis next Saturday. For Duke, the season ends at 35-3 — a record that any other year would feel like a triumph. Instead, the Blue Devils leave Washington with the hollow sting of a collapse that will define this team's legacy. The 19-point comeback ties for the third-largest in Elite Eight history or later, and it happened to the No. 1 overall seed. Cameron Boozer may have played his final college game. Cayden's turnover will follow him until he does something big enough to replace it in the public memory. Scheyer's program, built on the foundation Krzyzewski left behind, now carries a scar it didn't have yesterday.