March Madness 2026: How UConn’s Braylon Mullins became a hometown hero
GREENFIELD, Ind. — Sometimes stereotypes are stereotypes for a purpose: as a result of they’re well-earned, correct representations of a folks. Texans love brisket. New Yorkers love F-bombs. And the oldsters in Indiana — particularly John Mellencamp-serenaded “Well, I was born in a small town” people of Indiana — they actually, actually love basketball. From Indianapolis, the place the airport at the moment greets these arriving to city for the lads’s Final Four with an exhibition within the terminal of everybody from Bobby Knight and Butler to Wabash and Valparaiso, to a state map noticed with hamlets, villages and crossroads which have gifted us the likes of Larry Bird, Damon Bailey, Bobby Plump…
And now, Braylon Mullins.
“How’s the saying go?” asks Luke Meredith, Mullins’ highschool coach, realizing that we all know that he is aware of the reply. “In 49 states, it’s just basketball… but this is Indiana.”
Meredith mentioned these phrases as he was strolling out of Lucas Oil Stadium on Friday afternoon, one in all an estimated 25,000 individuals who confirmed as much as watch this yr’s males’s Final Four squads maintain 4 largely ceremonial observe periods. Many of them have been there to see a pair of Illinois gamers — Indianapolis product Jake Davis and Ben Humrichous of tiny Tipton, Indiana, 40 miles north of town — or UConn’s freshman scholar supervisor, Jack Richason of Carmel.
But the largest roar was reserved for Mullins. He who lower than a week in the past launched one of the vital memorable photographs in NCAA match historical past, a dagger 3-pointer with less than half a second remaining to torpedo Duke, ship Connecticut to the Final Four, and convey Mullins again residence to Indiana.
“When [UConn head coach] Dan Hurley was here recruiting Braylon, he was with [assistant] Luke Murray,” Meredith recalled as he walked the streets of Indy to fulfill up with the Mullins household so they might go to “the real practice.”
“When they signed him, they said to us, ‘We’re going to bring him back to Indiana for the Final Four next year.’ Well, right after he hit that shot, I texted them: ‘You did what you promised. Now I’m going to need some tickets!'”
Everyone in Greenfield wants tickets. It’s a city positioned 27 miles east of Lucas Oil Stadium with almost the very same inhabitants as Friday’s observe viewers. And that city plans on spending this weekend leaning into each rattling “Hoosiers” scene and stereotype that the remainder of us can conjure up. That contains a number of caravans down US Highway 40 — aka the Historic National Road, aka “The Road That Built the Nation” — similar to all these Studebakers and Hudsons following the Hickory High crew bus to Indy for these fictional state finals.
In reality, the bus used within the film, in addition to the 1951 Chevy coupe pushed by Gene Hackman, each reside in Greenfield. Their house owners will each be completely happy to point out as much as your native occasion for a reserving payment. And they each routinely drive these iron beasts east to close by Knightstown, 12 miles away, web site of the Hoosier Gym that was the house court docket for the Oscar-nominated movie. You can shoot hoops there, too. Just like Jimmy Chitwood… and perhaps Mullins, too? The Hoosier Gym hosts youth video games on a regular basis, and through a go to there Friday, the volunteers who hold the fitness center open have been fairly positive that Braylon Mullins performed there like a child. Maybe.
“I mean, he had to, right?”
“Hey, even if he didn’t, let’s just say he did. It’s good for business.”
Any affiliation with Mullins is nice for enterprise. That’s why over at The Depot, a prepare station-turned-watering gap, they’ve a framed No. 24 UConn jersey hanging over the servers’ station. The identical servers will gladly let you know that when Hurley got here to city it was “right at that table over there” the place he hunkered down with the Mullins household to attempt to persuade them that Storrs was, as Hurley described it just lately, “a small, rural town just like Greenfield, just with more snow.”
The Depot is positioned on the intersection of Depot and Pennsylvania Streets, although proper now, Depot Street has been renamed Braylon Avenue. Just a little farther up Pennsylvania, close to the Mullins’ residence, is now Mullins Drive, the blue signal affixed with a couple of 24s.
That was the brainchild of the mayor and the road commissioner. They tried to go one higher than that and have the lights on the I-70 overpass that results in Greenfield switched to UConn’s colours, however the LEDs did not have the proper shade of blue.
And positive, that may have been cool, however there was loads of Huskies hue on the Greenfield-Central High marquee “GC IS PROUD OF YOU BRAYLON,” to not point out all of the UConn stickers on all of the vans round city, a few slapped onto bumpers proper subsequent to Indiana Hoosiers 2026 College Football Playoff nationwide title decals. Besides, I-70 was already taken care of. On the hammer-down highway to Indy, an digital billboard positioned proper on the goodbye border of Greenfield’s Hancock County featured a picture of Connecticut’s males’s and ladies’s Final Four squads, with Mullins positioned entrance and middle.
“For me, it’s a crazy experience, being able to see all the family and friends and just playing in front of the home state of Indiana just means more than anything,” Mullins mentioned earlier within the week, including that he had managed to safe 15 tickets for household and pals for Saturday’s semifinals. “And maybe people will learn about Greenfield. It’s a great place to grow up.”
Not just for him and his twin brothers, Cole and Clay, who’re seniors at Central and signed to play for Division III Franklin University subsequent yr. Greenfield can be the place his dad and mom, Josh and Katie, have lived their complete lives, saved by their very own faculty experiences.
Katie’s household has been farming exterior of Greenfield reaching all the best way again to post-Civil War reconstruction. Josh is third era Greenfield, the descendant of Kentuckians-turned-Indianans — so changing into a basketball participant was predestined. The couple first met in second grade and became buddies. At Central, Josh performed hoops whereas Katie cheered, and ultimately Josh wised up and — as a 3-point specialist ought to do — shot his shot. (He did it on Valentine’s Day, no much less.) They did a flip in junior faculty in Illinois earlier than touchdown at IUPUI in Indianapolis, now generally known as IU-Indy.
That’s the place Josh was a ahead on the one Jaguars crew to put within the NCAA match, a spot earned by way of a 2003 Mid-Continent Conference championship recreation nail-biter, defeating Valparaiso 66-64. Josh made the all-tourney crew.
“We were a 16-seed and played Kentucky in the first round,” Mullins recalled earlier within the week. He scored eight factors, however the Wildcats — the SEC champs and No. 1 crew within the nation — gained 95-64. “My highlight was just making it into the tournament. Now Braylon’s in the Final Four.”
Cruising round Greenfield on Friday, it appeared as if the whole city have been within the Final Four. From the Central college students of their UConn hoodies to the six-pack of blue-collar staff spending their lunch break on the again deck of The Depot, agreeing to return Saturday for the big-screen viewing social gathering, to the still-new metropolis restrict indicators that greet any guests who may, as Mullins hopes, be curious to come back see what his hometown is all about. As it reads, throughout the road from Koenig John Deere and Superior Mowers:
WELCOME TO GREENFIELD, INDIANA. EXPERIENCE OUR PAST…SHARE OUR FUTURE.
HOME OF JAYCIE PHELPS 1996 USA GYMNASTICS GOLD MEDALIST
BRAYLON MULLINS 2025 INDIANA MR. BASKETBALL
“What people love most about him is that he is still the same guy he was, even now, after everyone in the world knows who he is,” former coach Meredith defined Friday. “He was just in the hallways of our high school this time last year. He grew up so close to the school he could walk there. He’s still Braylon. He’s still his mom and dad. He’s still Greenfield.”
Prior to the Duke recreation, Greenfield’s most well-known citizen had at all times been James Whitcomb Riley. A century in the past, he was the chief of what is generally known as the golden age of Indiana literature. Riley wrote with a distinctive Indiana dialect, penning poems beloved by youngsters around the globe, together with “Little Orphan Annie” and “The Raggedy Man.”
Every fall, fittingly on the night of faculty basketball season, Greenfield hosts the Riley Festival to have a good time the person and his work. In final yr’s parade, the Hoosiers crew bus and coach’s Chevy have been within the lineup. Just this week, city officers joked that they could should make it the Riley/Braylon Festival. At least, we expect they have been joking.
But Friday, whereas half the city was at Lucas Oil Stadium to observe Mullins observe, a group of youngsters adopted their mothers, waddling their approach alongside the Riley Arts Trail, positioned alongside Riley Avenue, one block over from Braylon Avenue. That path is marked by quotes from the poet, painted onto the concrete.
It’s straightforward to think about sooner or later, lengthy after Braylon Mullins is finished enjoying ball and, like Josh and Katie, inevitably finds his approach again residence to Greenfield, that he may sit there within the amphitheater, telling seemingly tall however true tales of Duke and daggers and that point his hometown caravaned right down to the large metropolis to observe him attempt to win a nationwide championship. Perhaps he’ll simply level to a type of James Whitcomb Riley sidewalk quotes. The one titled “A Ballad.”
Crowd about me,
little youngsters —
Come and cluster
‘spherical my knee
While I inform a little story
that occurred as soon as with me.
