I don't know if the broadcast crew talked about this...and perhaps it's even in this thread somewhere, which I haven't thoroughly reviewed, so apologies if this is retracing old ground.
From where I sat in Section 217, Sprinkle was playing some serious chess late in the game. IIRC, the Huskies were inbounding the ball with 35 second left and a 3-point lead. I remarked to my mates that the object at that point needed to be to lengthen the game and that, if the Gophers didn't get a steal within a few seconds, they needed to foul. The Gophs then proceeded to not foul and instead play for the backcourt violation. Washington took nine seconds off the clock, didn't make an aggressive or overly risky attempt to advance the ball across the time line, and called timeout. It looked like that was their plan--to take as much time off the clock as they could safely do, knowing that time was the Gophers' biggest enemy.
I think the Gophers got snookered by superior tactics. We got baited into letting nine precious seconds run off the clock with the false hope of a turnover. Granted, it was Washington's last timeout, so it was not without its own cost and risk, but it ended up working out for them.
Did anyone else have the same observations and thoughts? Perhaps I'm being Captain Obvious here. To me, though, it's another sign that our coach is way over his head. This, of course, has nothing to do with NIL money or any of the other "poor Ben" crutches. This is just poor performance.
