LC 154 Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array II | Binary Search HARD | Explained

Welcome to *Day 9* of the *75 Hard DSA Challenge*

In this video, I solve and explain LeetCode 154 – *Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array II,* a classic HARD *Binary Search* problem where *duplicates* break the standard logic and force us to carefully *shrink* the *search space.*

🔍 *What you’ll learn in this video:*
* How rotated sorted arrays work with duplicates
* Why normal binary search fails when arr[mid] == arr[j]
* How to safely shrink the search space
* Identifying the unsorted half to move pointers
* Handling worst-case degradation to O(n)
* Writing a clean and safe binary search loop

🧠 *Key Concept:*
- This problem is solved using a modified binary search.
- When duplicates exist, we can’t always decide which half is sorted.
- In such cases, we shrink the window (j--) to eliminate ambiguity while still guaranteeing correctness.
- The algorithm keeps narrowing the range until the minimum element is isolated.

📌 *75 Hard sheet:* https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kwYkCE0F1S6Jsl12pwxhrg2mTcJHMasfo1Ep3-47qbI/edit?usp=sharing
📌 *Problem Link:* https://leetcode.com/problems/find-minimum-in-rotated-sorted-array-ii/
📌 *Solution Link:* https://github.com/sibasundarj8/75-Hard-DSA-Challenge/blob/main/src/Day_09_LC_154.java

If you find this helpful, consider liking the video and subscribing to follow the complete *75-day HARD DSA* journey 🔥

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Видео LC 154 Find Minimum in Rotated Sorted Array II | Binary Search HARD | Explained канала The Optimal Approach