I missed watching the heroics of UConn freshman Braylon Mullins live Sunday because I was traveling home from Event No. 50 of the Around the World in 80 Sporting Events project. (USBC Masters PBA Finals).

My phone began blowing up nearly as soon as I left the parking lot at Thunderbowl Lanes in Allen Park, MI, and, for good reason after watching the frantic finish of Connecticut’s 73-72 East Regional Final victory over Duke.

As I watched Mullins’ shot a few times, I couldn’t help but feel as though I’d seen it before.

I had.

It was March 8, 2025, and my cousin, Brandon, and his daughter, Calah, were attending an Indiana Boys’ 4A Sectional Final at Muncie Fieldhouse. The game that night featured Greenfield-Central and Mt. Vernon. Mullins was a senior at Greenfield-Central while Mt. Vernon featured a junior who’d already committed to Purdue, Luke Ertel. It was the final night of Event No. 14 that took me to Indiana to watch as much basketball as I could fit into a week.

The two were throwing haymakers at one another most of the game (Mullins finished with 38 points, Ertel with 36), but it was this sequence at the end of regulation that I recalled 55 weeks later watching Mullins drain that 35-footer to set up a homecoming for him next week in Indianapolis at the Final Four.