UConn men’s basketball (33-5) will look to get to its seventh national title game in program history as the Huskies are set to take on 3-seed Illinois (28-8) in the Final Four on Saturday evening at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, the eighth Final Four appearance for the team since 1999.
The Fighting Illini came out of the South Region after knocking off Iowa in the Elite Eight in Houston. The NCAA Tournament run for Illinois started with Penn and VCU during the opening weekend before defeating
Houston in the Sweet 16 and the Hawkeyes in the Elite Eight. Brad Underwood has his program back in the Final Four for the first time since 2005, when Deron Williams, Luther Head and Dee Brown led the Illini to the national title game where they fell to UNC.
The Huskies came out of the East Region after knocking off Duke in the Elite Eight in Washington D.C. in historic fashion on a game winner from Braylon Mullins. The NCAA Tournament run for UConn started with Furman and UCLA in the first weekend in Philadelphia before knocking off Michigan State in the Sweet 16 and the Blue Devils in the Elite Eight. Dan Hurley has the Huskies in the Final Four for the third time in the past four seasons, their last appearance coming during their 2024 title run in Phoenix.
UConn and Illinois make up half of a very strong field in Indianapolis this weekend. Michigan and Arizona are set to tip off in the later game on Saturday, two of the top teams in the country and two of top rated teams in the history of KenPom.
The past four times that UConn has advanced to the Final Four, it eventually cut down the nets on Monday night. The last time that a Final Four appearance didn’t end in a championship was in 2009 when the team fell to Michigan State in Detroit. Can the Huskies keep the streak alive?
Should UConn advance, they’d face either Arizona or Michigan in the national championship on Monday in Indianapolis.
Date/Time: Saturday, April 4, 2026, 6:09 p.m.
TV/Stream: TBS, March Madness app
Radio: UConn Sports Network, Sirius XM 84, Sirius/XM online streaming
Odds: Illinois – 2.5, over/under 139.5
Location: Lucas Oil Stadium — Indianapolis, Indiana
KenPom Predicted Score: Illinois 74, UConn 70 — 38 percent win probability
Series History
The Huskies and Fighting Illini have played five times in their history, with this set to be the third matchup in the past three years. UConn has won four of the five, including the 2024 Elite Eight in which the Huskies rattled off a 30-0 run to blow past Illinois and get to the Final Four. The two teams last faced off earlier this season on Nov. 28, 2025 when UConn beat Illinois 74-61 at Madison Square Garden on Black Friday behind 15 points from Solo Ball and 14 points and nine assists from Malachi Smith.
Availability report
There are no injuries to report as of this time. The injury report comes out at 9 p.m. the day before the game. The next one comes out two hours before game time as the NCAA has mandated the injury reports during the postseason.
What to Watch For
Rematch on the big stage
As mentioned, Saturday won’t be the first time that UConn is seeing Illinois this season. The Huskies handled business against the Fighting Illini back in November at Madison Square Garden, but the way that both teams look now compared to then makes it feel like a completely different matchup.
For UConn, that game on Black Friday marked the collegiate debut of Braylon Mullins in a game in which he played just 10 minutes off the bench. Tarris Reed Jr. was still on the comeback from an ankle injury he sustained against BYU and was limited to just 15 minutes and was held without a field goal. Silas Demary Jr. only played 20 minutes as well, dealing with some foul trouble issues that plagued him in the non-conference that he was able to clean up as of late.
For Illinois, their makeup is completely different as well. Two players who played double digit minutes in the game, Mihalio Petrovic and Brandon Lee, have been out of the rotation entirely since that game. Star freshman Keaton Wagler had career lows across the board with just three points in 14 minutes of action. David Mirkovic and Andrej Stojakovic, two key cogs in Illinois’ run to get to Indianapolis, shot a combined 4-17 from the floor.
Even though both sides are nearly unrecognizable from that game in November, the benefit of playing an opponent you’re familiar with is still there.
“Tarris Reed was a shell of himself. They had all types of injuries. You take some things from the game,” Hurley said. “Obviously you’d rather have won the game than lost the game. It doesn’t matter a whole lot, but if you’re going to have played somebody in November and then you’re going to play them in this spot, you’d probably rather have won than have lost it.”
Wagler wake up
When these two teams last played, UConn caught Illinois right before it figured out what its identity was on the offensive end. Shortly after the loss to the Huskies, Underwood decided to give the keys to his freshman and he took off. Wagler has scored in double figures every single game since and scored 20+ points nine times. His most memorable game came on the road in Mackey Arena at Purdue, where he dropped 46 points and nine threes in a statement Illini win.
“Obviously he has the ball in his hands a lot more (since November),” Hurley said. “Just a very aggressive scorer, at the rim, from the three-point line. Great size. Just the vision that their staff had and Brad had for the player in terms of just how he was recruited and what they saw. The guy is a really, really talented player. Obviously we’re going to have to try to make him uncomfortable.”
Since that day, Wagler is averaging 19.1 points per game and has carried the Illini on the offensive end. The matchup that Hurley goes with to try and limit him will be interesting. Solo Ball had the assignment for most of the time Wagler was in the game. That certainly could be the matchup again, but Hurley could also mix it up and throw Demary on him. That’s what they did on Duke’s best perimeter player Isaiah Evans. Demary guarding Evans seemed unexpected, but the decision certainly paid off as he never got into much of a rhythm on the offensive end.
Battle of the bigs
Tarris Reed Jr. has had a dominant run so far through the NCAA Tournament, having his way with some talented frontcourt players along the way. Michigan State’s biggest strength was its front line and Reed went to work against it. Against Cameron Boozer and Duke, he was essentially the only reason the Huskies were in it until the end when Mullins hit his magical shot.
Illinois provides something that Reed and the Huskies haven’t seen yet this postseason: a pair of seven footers that play big minutes in the frontcourt. The Ivisic brothers – Tomislav and Zvonimir – have been forces on the block all year for the Fighting Illini and bring great size and strength to the frontcourt.
“You’ve seen such a different shift with their group,” Underwood said. “Tarris is averaging 24 and 14 or whatever in the tournament, so there’s a lot more post-ups. They don’t ball screen maybe as much as some teams in the country, so there’s a lot more off-ball screening that you’ve got to get acclimated to and movement.”
It’s probably not going to come easy if Reed wants to continue having the individual success he’s been having on Saturday, but, to be fair, I don’t think anyone expected what he did against Duke to come as effortless as it did.
Streak on the line
Ever since that Final Four loss in 2009, UConn has put together quite an impressive streak. The Huskies have won 18 straight games in the second weekend or later, winning four games in 2011, 2014, 2023 and 2024 as well as two so far this year. It’s pretty simple, actually. If UConn advances to the Sweet 16, they just keep winning.
You can take that in a couple different directions. For one, you can respect how impressive it is that what in theory should be and are the hardest games to win are the ones that the Huskies can’t seem to lose. On the other hand, you can look at it with the angle that UConn has only played 18 games – 19 on Saturday – in the second weekend in the past 17 years.
One shining moment
Even almost a week later, you still remember exactly where you were when Braylon Mullins hit perhaps the biggest shot in NCAA Tournament history. A moment that will go down in immortality, a moment that will live forever.
While UConn fans are still celebrating, the players and coaches have moved on.
“I had to let everyone enjoy it. I couldn’t come in on Monday like a cold damp blanket and just start destroying people on Monday,” Hurley said. “That just would have been a cruel thing to do to people’s spirit after such an incredible victory. But Tuesday you’ve just got to bring everybody back to reality. The reality is that moment is over. It’s an incredible moment. You’ll have that moment the rest of your life. But we came here for rings, not watches. Everyone that comes to the Final Four gets a beautiful watch, but only one group is going to get a ring.”
There’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that the Huskies will be prepared for Saturday night, even riding that high from Sunday. At the end of the day, the goal was always to win a national championship. If they get that done, it wouldn’t matter if they won the Elite Eight game in the fashion they did or if they won by 40 points. If the Huskies cut down the nets on Monday night, it won’t make a difference.
