Mullins’ maturation coming at perfect time as UConn chases Big East championship

Braylon Mullins may still be a freshman, but in name only based on his maturation through UConn’s season, which now reaches Big East tournament championship game. (Photo by Ishika Samant/Getty Images)

NEW YORK — Al McGuire was known for a variety of quotes and expressions during his time as the head coach at Marquette, but perhaps none more than his famous quip, “the best thing about freshmen is they become sophomores.”

Braylon Mullins is still several months away from earning the latter title formally, provided he returns to the University of Connecticut and resists the siren song of the NBA Draft, but the precocious first-year talent may as well be considered a freshman in name only at this point of the season.

With merely a handful of games, at most, to be played over the next three weeks, Mullins’ rookie campaign at UConn has seen its share of highs — his game-changing performance at Kansas in just his second career game, or his career-high 25 points against Creighton in February — and lows, such as the ankle injury that cost him almost the entire month of November. He has gone through mini-slumps, including the 5-for-29 stretch from three-point range he is currently mired in over his last four games, but has overcome the adversity by affecting the game in other positive ways.

“He’s brought this since the summer,” Alex Karaban said of the total package Mullins offers. “I think (with) his quick release and the elite jumper, he’s more athletic than people give, he’s a better defender than people give. That’s just who he was when he came here, and he didn’t let that change.”

Friday, with UConn controlling its Big East tournament semifinal against Georgetown on the defensive end, Mullins used his athleticism and shot making prowess inside the arc to power his way to 21 points, spearheading a 67-51 win that led the Huskies back into the conference championship game.

“I think after the first shot with the shot clock violation (Mullins missed a three before Tarris Reed, Jr. was a half-second late in beating the buzzer in the game’s first minute), trying to get out of that little feel of, ‘hey, you missed your first shot,’” he recalled. “It is what it is. Then I think I came down, I made my next two, and it kind of got me into a flow in the first half.”

“To be honest, I was making difficult shots. I thought it was just the rhythm that Coach Hurley gave the sets with and put me in. We took that into the second half collectively, defensively, I think we played close to a full 40 (minutes).”

Mullins’ outing Friday marked the first 20-point game by a UConn freshman in the Big East tournament since Jerome Dyson did so in 2007, and it represents another turning point just six days removed from feeling like he and his teammates let his coach down in the wake of the Huskies’ deflating loss at Marquette in their regular season finale.

“Me trying to build him up, a young guy like Braylon, I just had to bring him in and tell him he’s a one-year superstar,” Dan Hurley shared after UConn started its postseason journey with a win over Xavier in the Big East tournament quarterfinals Thursday. “He’s one of the few freshmen in the country that is a starter and a guy that plays both ends, and doesn’t care about how many shots he gets. He allows us to play the balanced game that we play without caring about his draft stock.”

“It changes everything for us,” Karaban said of what Mullins provides offensively. “It opens up the floor more for Tarris (Reed, Jr.) and Eric (Reibe) down low, for Silas (Demary, Jr.) to attack the rim. We kind of play 4-on-4 out there because they’re so worried about Braylon as a shooter, they just might not leave him. So it spaces everything else out more and I think more so his shot making, as well as shot creating, he’s beyond his years as a freshman.”

The rigors of a season tend to accelerate the aging and maturation process in a player, and 26 games into his career, Mullins is living proof of basketball evolution even if he declined to tackle that concept head-on. But no matter what year he is in, or however much time is left, a complete Mullins is a boon to a successful UConn as a whole.

“At this point in the season, you’re treating the game how it is,” he said. “You’re gonna play with guys, you’re gonna play with leaders on the team, and that’s how you treat everybody. So at this point, I think I’ve moved on from that. You’ve just gotta focus on the game and just focus on how to make everybody on the court and how they can play better.”

“That’s kind of how I can stay out of the mental state of always doubting yourself, and I think it just helps me play the game. Just being able to use that, it helps everybody else on the floor, and we’re just all gonna use that to our advantage.”