The men's Final Four is UConn versus Illinois and Arizona versus Michigan, and if the tournament ended now, nobody would complain, because what happened in the Elite Eight on Saturday night in Washington was enough basketball to last a decade [1].

UConn trailed Duke by 19 points at halftime. The Blue Devils had shot 57 percent from the field in the first half. Duke's Cooper Flagg, the consensus national player of the year, had 22 points by the break. The arena smelled like a coronation. Then it became something else.

The Huskies scored 17 unanswered points in the first eight minutes of the second half. Duke's offense seized. Flagg picked up his fourth foul on a charge call that will be debated until the heat death of the universe. With 12 seconds left, Duke led 72-70 and had the ball. Duke guard Caleb Foster dribbled into traffic near halfcourt. Braylon Mullins — a freshman from Charlotte who averaged 8.3 points per game during the regular season — stripped the ball, took two dribbles, and launched a three-pointer from approximately 35 feet [2].

The ball went in with 0.4 seconds remaining. UConn 73, Duke 72. Mullins disappeared under a pile of teammates. The arena in Washington — ostensibly neutral territory but filled with Duke blue — went silent, then erupted. ESPN's play-by-play call, which will be replayed for decades, consisted of a single word stretched to approximately four seconds: "YEEEESSSSS."

The shot's historical echoes were immediate and deliberate. In 1990, Christian Laettner hit a buzzer-beater to beat UConn in the Elite Eight and send Duke to the Final Four. Thirty-six years later, a UConn freshman returned the favor, in the same round, with a shot that was longer and more improbable [3]. ESPN's Jeff Goodman compiled a list of the greatest tournament buzzer-beaters and placed Mullins' shot at number two, behind only Laettner's 1992 shot against Kentucky — a ranking that may not survive the week.

The broader Final Four picture: Arizona, the West Region top seed, beat Gonzaga convincingly. Michigan, the Midwest two seed, upset Houston in overtime. Illinois, the South Region top seed, dispatched Auburn. The Saturday semifinal matchups in Indianapolis — Arizona versus Michigan, UConn versus Illinois — offer two distinct styles: Arizona's suffocating defense against Michigan's transition offense, and UConn's chaotic resilience against Illinois' structured half-court attack [1].

On the women's side, the Final Four is all four number-one seeds for the second consecutive year: UConn, UCLA, Texas, and South Carolina head to Phoenix [4]. The repeat is historic — only the second time the same four teams have reached the Final Four in back-to-back seasons. UConn's Paige Bueckers, in her final college season, scored 31 points in the Elite Eight. South Carolina's Dawn Staley is coaching in her fifth consecutive Final Four.

The tournament arrives on April Fools' Day, and the cosmic joke is that the most unbelievable moment of the sports year — a freshman stealing the ball and hitting a 35-footer to beat Duke after trailing by 19 — actually happened. No one would have believed it in a movie script. It required no embellishment. It required 0.4 seconds.

-- Amara Okonkwo, Lagos