Hoosiers to Watch in the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Final Four

Indianapolis is geared up to host the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Final Four, with the semifinal games (Saturday, April 4) and national championship (Monday, April 6) all played at Lucas Oil Stadium. Here are the Hoosiers to root for in this year’s Final Four.

While Purdue – led by head coach Matt Painter and seven players with Indiana ties – came up short in the Elite Eight against Arizona, there are still four individuals with Hoosier ties competing for a national title.

The Shot Heard ‘Round the Country

UConn freshman Braylon Mullins delivered the shot of the tournament in No. 2 seed UConn’s stunning 73-72 win over No. 1 overall seed Duke, splashing in a 35-foot desperation heave with 0.4 seconds left on the clock to complete a 19-point comeback for the Huskies.

The 6-foot-6 guard missed six games due to injury to start the season and another contest in late January because of concussion protocol, but has been one of UConn’s go-to scoring threats when on the court. He’s one of five Huskies averaging double figures, scoring 11.9 points per game while shooting a team-best 88.6% (31-35) from the charity stripe.

In the Huskies’ Elite Eight win against the Blue Devils, Mullins missed his first four three-point attempts, but his confidence never wavered. His prayer from the logo sent him and his teammates to downtown Indianapolis this weekend for UConn’s third Final Four appearance in the last four seasons under head coach Dan Hurley and eighth in program history.

UConn (33-5) knows a thing or two about winning at this stage of the tournament as well. The Huskies are 6-1 in semifinal games and 6-0 in the national championship. And four months ago at the end of November, they topped Illinois 74-61.

Mullins was a 2025 graduate of Greenfield-Central High School, just 30 minutes east of Indianapolis and Lucas Oil Stadium. He is the Cougars’ all-time leading scorer with 2,158 points and earned basically every accolade following his senior season: Indiana Mr. Basketball, Gatorade Indiana Player of the Year, and McDonald’s All-American. His prep career ended with an 83-76 loss in double overtime to Mt. Vernon (Fortville) in the sectional final, but he went down swinging with 38 points. Mt. Vernon’s squad was led by then-junior and Purdue commit Luke Ertel, who poured in 36 points himself.

Mid-Major Transfers Playing Key Minutes for Illinois

UConn and Mullins’ opponent in the semifinal is South Region champion and 3-seed Illinois (28-8), which has two second-year transfers from Indiana who play significant minutes.

Junior Jake Davis has played in all 36 games for the Fighting Illini this year, making 21 starts. He’s averaging 5.4 points and 2.2 rebounds per game. The 6-foot-6 forward’s best tournament performance came in the Sweet 16 against 2-seed Houston, when he scored five points and snagged four rebounds.

He began his collegiate career at Mercer University and led the team in minutes per game as a freshman (28.6), playing in all 33 games with 25 starts. He averaged 9.0 points and 4.5 rebounds per contest, and paced Mercer in free-throw percentage (84.8%, 39-46) and three-pointers made (60).

Davis was a 2023 graduate of Indianapolis Cathedral High School, a year in which the Fighting Irish lost in the regional final to eventual 4A state champion Ben Davis. He was named Indianapolis Supreme 15 by the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association after averaging 10.8 points and 5.2 rebounds in 19 games as a senior. On top of being Indiana’s record holder for career charges taken (83), he also earned Academic All-State honors with a 4.21 weighted GPA.

As a junior, Cathedral won the 4A state championship, with Davis as one of five players who averaged double figures with 10.2 points per game. Cathedral’s starting five that year featured Davis and four other Division I athletes – Tayshawn Comer (Nevada), Jaron Tibbs (Kansas State football), Xavier Booker (UCLA) and Jaxon Edwards (St. Bonaventure). Davis earned Underclassmen All-Star Honorable Mention that season.

Davis’ Illinois teammate with Indiana ties is 6-foot-9 forward Ben Humrichous, a graduate senior who has played in all 36 games (two starts) this season while earning Academic All-Big Ten honors. He’s averaged 5.9 points and 3.9 rebounds per game, and scored 12 points in the Fighting Illini’s 105-70 first-round tournament win over 14-seed Penn.

Humrichous’ journey to Champaign, Illinois is a unique one. He spent three seasons at Huntington University in Indiana, where he led the Foresters to back-to-back NAIA Tournament berths in 2022 and 2023. He then transferred to the University of Evansville for one season, started in all 24 games in which he played, and led the team in scoring at 14.7 points per game while ranking second with 4.7 rebounds. He knocked down a team-best 53 three-pointers and led the team in three-point shooting percentage (41.4%), the fourth-best mark in the Missouri Valley Conference. He was also named to the MVC All-Newcomer Team and was the MVC Scholar-Athlete of the Year.

Humrichous graduated from Tipton High School in 2020 and earned Indiana All-State Honorable Mention as a senior.

The Rise of Dusty May

Michigan head coach Dusty May was born in Terre Haute and graduated in 1995 from Eastern Greene High School in Bloomfield.

He played collegiately at Division II Oakland City University in Indiana for one season before transferring to Indiana University, where he exchanged his jersey for a clipboard as student manager from 1996 to 2000 for Bobby Knight’s Hoosiers. He then bounced around as an assistant coach and landed his first head coaching job at Florida Atlantic in 2018. Five years later, he took the mid-major Owls to the Final Four in Houston where they lost to San Diego State on a buzzer beater. His Owls returned to the NCAA Tournament in 2024, and that success led him to Ann Arbor.

In just two years, May has Michigan back as one of college basketball’s elite programs.

In his first season, the Wolverines went 27-10, won the Big Ten Tournament and reached the Sweet 16. His second campaign has been even better.

The 1-seed Wolverines (35-3) set a program record with 29 regular season wins, won 19 conference games to surpass the previous record of 18 set by the 1974-75 and 1975-76 Indiana Hoosiers, and have scored 90-plus points in each of their four NCAA Tournament wins. May was given the Henry Iba Award as the national coach of the year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association and was also Big Ten Coach of the Year.

Who to Cheer For

If you want to see a Hoosier win it all, then you’re backing any of UConn (Braylon Mullins), Illinois (Jake Davis, Ben Humrichous) or Michigan (Dusty May).

Here’s to hoping the tournament stays mad for one more memorable weekend.