LAWRENCE, Kan. — Alex Karaban said he was thinking about his teammates from the second national title team on Tuesday night when fifth-ranked UConn did something that team couldn’t do — beat Kansas at Allen Fieldhouse.
Dan Hurley, however, is not one for sentimentality.
“Those guys are all doing fine,” Hurley said after the Huskies’ grind-it-out, 61-56 win, adding that that 2023-24 core is all flourishing in the NBA and living pretty good lives.
“These guys should get tired of hearing about the ’24 team, and be like, yo, this ’26 team did something that the ’24 never did. And we want to accomplish things that the ’24 team couldn’t. So I think this team should be more competitive, like we want to do s— that the ’24 team didn’t do. That’s my mindset.”
Hurley is one of the best in college basketball at playing mind games with his team. He turned the back-to-back title teams into terminators by March, and this has the chance to be his turn-the-page season. Last year was all about what he didn’t have. Through eight games, it’s apparent he has a team once again talented enough to compete for a national title. He wouldn’t talk such a big game if he didn’t think that.
One reason for optimism from Tuesday was the debut of freshman Braylon Mullins. Mullins played his first game last Friday against Illinois, but he was on a minutes restriction coming off knee and ankle injuries. This game was his first at full tilt, and he showed Hurley has a new dangerous weapon at his disposal.
get ready to learn Braylon Mullins pic.twitter.com/V4rbafVxCh
— UConn Men’s Basketball (@UConnMBB) December 3, 2025
Kansas, as it did two years ago, executed its game plan to near perfection, constantly switching all over the floor to take away UConn’s actions and force the Huskies into playing one-on-one basketball. That’s not ideal for this team — see a season-low 0.98 points per possession — but the ability of Mullins and Solo Ball to jump up and make a contested jumper allowed the Huskies to stay close enough that when KU went ice cold they could take the lead.
And Mullins, on first impression, appears to have the closing gene.
With Kansas trailing by 3 in the final minute, Mullins grabbed a rebound off an Eric Reibe block and got fouled, going to the line with 9.2 seconds left for the first time in his career in the sport’s most storied venue — and probably the loudest — and swishing both.
“We do a free throw game every week, every day, every practice,” Mullins said. “So I’m used to that. I mean it didn’t bother me.”
When asked how he does in that free-throw game, Mullins said “there’s some days it doesn’t go too well.”
“He makes them,” Karaban interjected.
“Humble Indiana boy,” Hurley said.
Do not let the humility fool you. Mullins called basketball “a child’s game,” the kind of thing someone says when they are unfazed by big environments or big moments.
Mullins, who tied Ball with a team-high 17 points, did not shoot it great against the Jayhawks — 3-of-9 from beyond the arc — but his shot is one of the most picturesque in the country. It’s a shot that pretty is going to go in at a good rate, especially when sprinkling in that level of confidence, and Mullins also showed he’s more than just a shooter, scoring on a nice baseline drive around 6-foot-11 Bryson Tiller and a sweet off-the-dribble turnaround fadeaway at the elbow.
“Everybody knows he can shoot; I thought he looked athletic,” Kansas coach Bill Self said. “I thought he played with bounce. … He’s a good player. He’s really a good player.”
Self had to be envious of Hurley that he has his star freshman back, because KU was clearly missing Darryn Peterson, who might just be the best offensive weapon in the country. Peterson missed his seventh straight game with a hamstring injury. Self said he’s 95 percent and expects him to practice the rest of this week and he’ll return once he feels 100 percent. (The next opportunity is Sunday against rival Missouri.)
Without Peterson, the Jayhawks went nearly eight minutes between field goals in the second half, then had another 4 1/2-minute field-goal drought after that. Against an elite program like UConn, sometimes it’s hard to run good offense and you have to have guys go make a play. And when your star is not there, it forces others into roles that might not be ideal for them.
The luxury Hurley has is that the Huskies have several guys who could take turns in that role. UConn was also missing one of its stars in leading scorer Tarris Reed and he may have made a difference, as he would have been the best candidate to punish KU’s switches.
But the Huskies figured out an alternate plan in the second half, drawing the Jayhawks into some long closeouts and then attacking. They also outscored KU 9-0 in second-chance points. It’s hard for a switching defense to box out because it leads to funky crossmatches, and the Huskies took advantage like they could not in their loss to Arizona.
“You could see the growth with the team today,” Hurley said. “We knew, even though they made some early 3s, that they were a team that that hurt you in the paint. And so to keep them to 20 paint points and five second-chance points is why we won the game.”
Hurley wants his team to make its own legacy. (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
The steadiness of Karaban also helped. The senior, who Hurley is always quick to remind everyone is a two-time champion, is in a more natural role this year, where he does not have to be the star and can pick his moments to make his impact. He was the one best at attacking KU in closeouts, and after banging a huge 3, he scored back-to-back buckets at the rim, going on his own 7-0 run that gave the Huskies their first second-half lead with 10:47 left in the game.
The Huskies were able to hold on from there, looking like the more experienced team down the stretch. The Jayhawks made two switching errors late, leading to two easy layups, while the Huskies were sound defensively, especially on the possession when Kansas needed a 3 and Reibe ended up blocking Jamari McDowell on a drive to the bucket.
There is room for improvement, especially the next time a team inevitably tries KU’s effective switching scheme — “our guards don’t have their eyes in the places to see some of the things that were available versus the switch,” Hurley said — but the UConn coaches have plenty of time to iron that out.
More importantly, Hurley now has a team that knows it’s capable of going into the toughest environment in college basketball and figuring out a way to come away with a win when you’re not at your best. That’s what championship teams do. Whether Hurley can mold this one into college basketball’s best by March, we’ll see.
But his message leaving Lawrence was clear: It’s time for this team to make its own legacy.