NEW YORK (AP) — Ochai Agbaji scored 18 points in 25 minutes off the bench and the Brooklyn Nets snapped a 10-game losing streak with a 116-99 win over the Sacramento Kings on Sunday night.
Agbaji led five Nets in double-figure scoring as Nolan Traore had 17, Drake Powell 16, Noah Clowney 15 and Nic Claxton 10 for Brooklyn.
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Brooklyn Nets' Nolan Traore (88) drives past Sacramento Kings' Devin Carter (22) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Sacramento Kings' Nique Clifford (5) defends Brooklyn Nets' Nolan Traore (88) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Brooklyn Nets' Drake Powell, left, shoots over Sacramento Kings' Nique Clifford during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Brooklyn Nets' Nic Claxton (33) looks to pass during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Sacramento Kings Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Brooklyn Nets' Drake Powell (4) dunks the ball in front of Sacramento Kings' Precious Achiuwa (9) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Sacramento fell to 19-57 with its fourth straight loss.
Devin Carter scored 20 points for the Kings, who lost their fourth straight. Nique Clifford added 17, Precious Achiuwa had 16 and DaQuan Jeffries 14.
The second matchup in six days of franchises building for the future saw Nets coach Jordi Fernandez and Kings coach Doug Christie get extended looks at their young players.
There were 10 Nets who played at least 10 minutes, led by Traore’s 30, while the Kings had nine get playing time. Clifford led Sacramento with 37 minutes.
Brooklyn put the game away in a span of 8:44 between the end of the first quarter and the midpoint of the second with a 23-7 run.
Agbaji scored nine of his 18 points in the stretch for the Nets.
It wasn’t all offense for Brooklyn in the first half. The Nets limited the Kings to 26.7% shooting from 3 and forced nine turnovers.
Sacramento outscored Brooklyn 28-18 in the third quarter and opened the final 12 minutes with a 10-6 spurt to cut the Nets’ lead to 92-83. That was as close as the Kings would come.
Kings: Finish their five-game road trip Wednesday in Toronto.
Nets: Continue their season-high six-game homestand Tuesday against Charlotte.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA
Brooklyn Nets' Nolan Traore (88) drives past Sacramento Kings' Devin Carter (22) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Sacramento Kings' Nique Clifford (5) defends Brooklyn Nets' Nolan Traore (88) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Brooklyn Nets' Drake Powell, left, shoots over Sacramento Kings' Nique Clifford during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Brooklyn Nets' Nic Claxton (33) looks to pass during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Sacramento Kings Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
Brooklyn Nets' Drake Powell (4) dunks the ball in front of Sacramento Kings' Precious Achiuwa (9) during the second half of an NBA basketball game Sunday, March 29, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
All that talent at Arizona and Michigan. All that momentum and good vibes at UConn. And somebody has to be play the part of the unheralded “little guy.” At the Final Four next weekend, that role belongs, improbably, to Illinois.
In a sign of the times, the Illinii — a Big Ten team with more wins in the conference over the last seven seasons than any other program — will pass for something resembling Cinderella when college basketball’s biggest party kicks off in Indianapolis on Saturday.
The first challenge for coach Brad Underwood's team will be stopping a hard-charging UConn juggernaut that came from 19 points down and got a game-winner from the logo with 0.4 seconds left from an Indy native — Braylon Mullins — to make its third Final Four in the last four years.
The last two times the Huskies reached this point, they won the championship.
“It’s a UConn culture, a UConn heart,” coach Dan Hurley said. “We believe we’re supposed to win this time of year.”
All these teams do.
Arizona, led by Brayden Burries, and Michigan, with Yaxel Lendeborg, have up to nine NBA prospects between them.
The Wildcats opened as slight favorites — at plus-165 to win the championship, according to BetMGM Sportsbook. That was a shade ahead of the Wolverines, who are plus-180 after their 95-62 romp over Tennessee on Sunday.
But, in one of a few strange twists on the odds chart, the Wildcats are 1 1/2-point underdogs to Michigan in Saturday night’s second semifinal.
Illinois is a 2 1/2-point favorite over UConn and, in reality, it's the Huskies, at plus-550, who are the biggest long shot in Indy.
Even so, the fact that Illinois — the flagship university in the nation’s sixth most populous state and a school with an enrollment of nearly 60,000 — feels most like this year's out-of-nowhere underdog speaks more about the current state of college hoops than the Illini themselves.
They are a No. 3 seed — the highest number at the Final Four in two years. (UConn is a 2. Last season, all four No. 1s made it.)
This year's meeting of 1 vs. 1 — Michigan vs. Arizona — is a heavyweight matchup of power teams from power conferences meeting with everything at stake.
It’s a far cry from a mere three years ago, when mid-majors Florida Atlantic (coached by Dusty May, who now leads the Wolverines) and San Diego State crashed college basketball’s biggest party.
Since then, NIL and the transfer portal have redefined the contours of player movement, another spasm of realignment has made the big conferences bigger (Arizona, now in the Big 12, was in the Pac-12 in 2023), and the high-achieving underdogs that used to make March Madness what it is have gone into a slump.
Double-digit seeds won a total of five games in this tournament (not counting the play-in round). Two years ago, they won 11 and sent one team (N.C. State) to the Final Four.
Not surprisingly, Underwood — the coach who landed on the Illinois radar a decade ago by coaching double-digit seed Stephen F. Austin to a pair of upset wins in the tournament — views his program’s trip to the Final Four more as destiny than a once-in-a-lifetime story.
It is, however, the first trip for Illinois since 2005, when it lost to North Carolina in the title game.
“I don’t want to sound arrogant,” said Underwood, whose teams have won 96 Big Ten games since 2019-20, two more than Purdue. “I’ve never doubted us getting to a Final Four would happen. I have thought we have had other teams capable. But I also know how doggone hard it is to do it.”
The Big Ten knows all about this. Both Illinois and Michigan have a chance to deliver a title for the conference for the first time since Michigan State won it all in 2000.
The Illini, led by the so-called “Balkan Bloc” — a cohort of players with roots in Eastern Europe — have a potential NBA lottery pick of their own in guard Keaton Wagler.
Even so, the best-known name on the Illini roster might be Andrej Stojakovic, whose father, Peja, was a three-time NBA All-Star. Illinois is the third school in three years for the younger Stojakovic, who spent one season at Stanford and another at Cal before joining Underwood’s crew.
The task for Illinois: Figuring out who to key on across a roster that has five players who average double figures, led by Tarris Reed Jr.
The Wildcats-Wolverines game is a high-powered matchup of programs that have shown there’s more than one way to amass talent in the era of the unlimited transfer portal and big-money name, image and likeness deals.
Four of the five starters for Tommy Lloyd’s Wildcats began their careers in Tucson; the fifth, Big 12 player of the year Jaden Bradley, moved over from Alabama and has been with the Wildcats for three years.
Meanwhile, the top four players in minutes played at Michigan — Lendeborg, Morez Johnson Jr., Aday Mara and Elliot Cadeau — all arrived from the transfer portal.
In a twist that makes perfect sense these days, both coaches parlayed roots in the mid-majors to a spot on the sport’s biggest stage. Lloyd spent decades as a top assistant for Mark Few at Gonzaga before heading to Arizona to rebuild the program after the ouster of Sean Miller in 2021.
May led FAU to the Final Four before heading to the Michigan program that had thrived, then collapsed, under former Fab Five star Juwan Howard.
AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-mens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness
UConn guard Braylon Mullins (24) celebrates after a basket against Duke during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
UConn forward Tarris Reed Jr. (5) reacts after the team's win against Duke in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Abbie Parr)
Arizona forward Ivan Kharchenkov smiles on the stage after a win over Purdue in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Saturday, March 28, 2026, in San Jose, Calif. (AP Photo/Kelley L Cox)
Illinois' Zvonimir Ivisic cuts part of the net after an Elite Eight game against Iowa in the NCAA college basketball tournament Saturday, March 28, 2026, in Houston. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)
Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg (23) celebrates after defeating Tennessee in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley)
UConn guard Braylon Mullins, right, celebrates his game winning basket with guard Malachi Smith (0) during the second half in the Elite Eight of the NCAA college basketball tournament against Duke, Sunday, March 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
