The Final Four is set as UConn
stuns Duke to join Illinois, Arizona and Michigan
[March 30, 2026]
By EDDIE PELLS
All that talent at Arizona and Michigan. All that momentum and good
vibes at UConn. And somebody has to play the part of the unheralded
“little guy.” At the Final Four next weekend, that role belongs,
improbably, to Illinois.
In a sign of the times, the Illinii — a Big Ten team with more wins
in the conference over the last seven seasons than any other program
— will pass for something resembling Cinderella when college
basketball’s biggest party kicks off in Indianapolis on Saturday.
The first challenge for coach Brad Underwood's team will be stopping
a hard-charging UConn juggernaut that came from 19 points down and
got a game-winner from the logo with 0.4 seconds left from an Indy
native — Braylon Mullins — to make its third Final Four in the last
four years.
The last two times the Huskies reached this point, they won the
championship.
“It’s a UConn culture, a UConn heart,” coach Dan Hurley said. “We
believe we’re supposed to win this time of year.”
All these teams do.
Arizona, led by Brayden Burries, and Michigan, with Yaxel Lendeborg,
have up to nine NBA prospects between them.
The Wildcats opened as slight favorites — at plus-165 to win the
championship, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. That was a shade ahead
of the Wolverines, who are plus-180 after their 95-62 romp over
Tennessee on Sunday.
But, in one of a few strange twists on the odds chart, the Wildcats
are 1 1/2-point underdogs to Michigan in Saturday night’s marquee
semifinal, a matchup of No. 1 seeds.
Illinois is a 1 1/2-point favorite over UConn and, in reality, it's
the Huskies, at plus-550, who are the biggest long shot in Indy.
Even so, the fact that Illinois — the flagship university in the
nation’s sixth most populous state and a school with an enrollment
of nearly 60,000 — feels most like this year's out-of-nowhere
underdog speaks more about the current state of college hoops than
the Illini themselves.
They are a No. 3 seed — the highest number at the Final Four in two
years. (UConn is a 2. Last season, all four No. 1s made it.)
This year's meeting of 1 vs. 1 — Michigan vs. Arizona — is a
heavyweight matchup of power teams from power conferences meeting
with everything at stake.
It’s a far cry from a mere three years ago, when mid-majors Florida
Atlantic (coached by Dusty May, who now leads the Wolverines) and
San Diego State crashed college basketball’s biggest party.
Since then, NIL and the transfer portal have reshaped the contours
of player movement, another spasm of realignment has made the big
conferences bigger (Arizona, now in the Big 12, was in the Pac-12 in
2023), and the high-achieving underdogs who used to make March
Madness what it is have gone into a slump.
Double-digit seeds won a total of five games in this tournament (not
counting the play-in round). Two years ago, they won 11 and sent one
team (N.C. State) to the Final Four.
[to top of second column] |
Illinois' Zvonimir Ivisic cuts part of the net after an Elite Eight
game against Iowa in the NCAA college basketball tournament
Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Not surprisingly, Underwood — the coach who landed on the Illinois
radar a decade ago by coaching double-digit seed Stephen F. Austin
to a pair of upset wins in the tournament — views his program’s trip
to the Final Four more as destiny than a once-in-a-lifetime story.
It is, however, the first trip for Illinois since 2005, when it lost
to North Carolina in the title game.
“I don’t want to sound arrogant,” said Underwood, whose teams have
won 96 Big Ten games since 2019-20, two more than Purdue. “I’ve
never doubted us getting to a Final Four would happen. I have
thought we have had other teams capable. But I also know how doggone
hard it is to do it.”
The Big Ten knows all about this. Both Illinois and Michigan have a
chance to deliver a title for the conference for the first time
since Michigan State won it all in 2000.
Illinois vs. UConn
The Illini, led by the so-called “Balkan Bloc” — a cohort of players
with roots in Eastern Europe — have a potential NBA lottery pick of
their own in guard Keaton Wagler.
Even so, the best-known name on the Illini roster might be Andrej
Stojakovic, whose father, Peja, was a three-time NBA All-Star.
Illinois is the third school in three years for the younger
Stojakovic, who spent one season at Stanford and another at Cal
before joining Underwood’s crew.
The task for Illinois: Figuring out who to key on across a roster
that has five players who average double figures, led by Tarris Reed
Jr.
Michigan vs. Arizona
The Wildcats-Wolverines game is a high-powered matchup of programs
that have shown there’s more than one way to amass talent in the era
of the unlimited transfer portal and big-money name, image and
likeness deals.
Four of the five starters for Tommy Lloyd’s Wildcats began their
careers in Tucson; the fifth, Big 12 player of the year Jaden
Bradley, moved over from Alabama and has been with the Wildcats for
three years.
Meanwhile, the top four players in minutes played at Michigan —
Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara and Elliot Cadeau — all
arrived from the transfer portal.
In a twist that makes perfect sense these days, both coaches
parlayed roots in the mid-majors to a spot on the sport’s biggest
stage. Lloyd spent decades as a top assistant for Mark Few at
Gonzaga before heading to Arizona to rebuild the program after the
ouster of Sean Miller in 2021.
May led FAU to the Final Four before heading to the Michigan program
that had thrived, then collapsed, under former Fab Five star Juwan
Howard.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
