It would appear everyone has already said what they will about last night’s game, but I do feel the need to jump in: Say what you will about last night’s game, but if Jordan Mathews doesn’t make that 3-pointer, Gonzaga is flying home today. West Virginia did a lot wrong, familiar errors that have cost a good team games at separate times choosing to come together at once to cost the Mountaineers one more time, but the Bulldogs needed every one of them to get a chance.

They got it, they took it and it’s WVU that’s flying home today.

That’s too simple, though, so let’s review and attempt to cobble together a complex and tortured legacy of this team.

That’s hard to look at, is it not? It’s impossible for the Mountaineers to stomach.

Q. Coach, just wondering how frustrating was it for you to see this game so close and yet your team had a hard time making some shots?

COACH HUGGINS: Hard. Where are you? Hard. But you tell me another team in the country who can shoot 26 percent from the field against a No. 1 seed, 21 percent from 3 and still could have, should have won the game. I think that says a lot about what kind of guys we have.

There aren’t a lot of teams that can play as badly as WVU played in the first half and remain in the game. There are fewer teams that can do that twice. That the Mountaineers did it twice in the Sweet Sixteen against a No. 1 seed is a mouthful. This was their game. They made it their game. Then they fumbled it away with two brutal turnovers, a needless and preventable foul, two missed free throws and a wonky final possession doing them in.

But it could have just as easily gone the other way. WVU won this game two weeks ago. The 16 field goals and the 26.7 percent shooting, believe it or not, matches the season-low. Same guys did it in the Big 12 semifinal. Won that one. Lost this one. Kansas State missed its 3-pointer at the buzzer. Gonzaga made its de facto winner.

Now, Gonzaga has a lot to do with that, don’t get me wrong. The Bulldogs guarded all game. They didn’t go away. They triumphed in a battle they were not experienced with, but this is not to say they were not prepared for it.

COACH FEW: Hey, that was just an absolute war. Rock fight. However you want to describe it. I mean, those are two really, really tough teams, two really physical teams that laid it out there on the line. And there were big shots being made right and left and fortunately we made the two big plays at the end.

And all year we’ve been banking on our defense, our defense, our defense. Our defense stepped up and got it done there at the end. So we are absolutely elated to continue to be playing, and we’re 40 minutes away from a Final Four, which was something we set our sights on at the start of the year.

The Mountaineers had similar goals, but they had flaws as well, and they hung above WVU all season. It was like the piano being pulled up to the penthouse of the Manhattan highrise. The Mountaineers were walking down that sidewalk, and you had a feeling that rope was going to hold for only so long.

Bang.

Still, a lot had to go wrong. WVU’s offense can come and go, but it oftentimes had enough options that someone would be able to score a few points to make up for someone else having an off night. There was none of that last night. Tarik Phillip and Dax Miles were off, but Lamont West and Teyvon Myers couldn’t help. Nate Adrian’s pretty clearly not healthy, and Esa Ahmad only attempted three shots. Give Gonzaga some credit. It injected a good bit of doubt and reservations, but that also means WVU gave in to it all.

When the offense goes, WVU has to do other things, but WVU did that. Rebounded. Scored on second chances. Forced turnovers. Did a lot with them. Switched defenses, too. Never gave up more than seven unanswered points. Put together, it had WVU right where WVU wanted to be.

Then it went bad. Miles was in a game he might not ordinarily be in because he was rebounding, which he does not ordinarily do, but a rebound sent him to the foul line. He missed two, which is not unfamiliar. Fourth time he’s gone 0-for-2 late in a tight game WVU. Phillip was not himself — Huggins was furious about Phillip’s turnover committed when he drove despite being told not to and then the foul when WVU’s bench was begging him not to check the dribbler — and Huggins needed offense, so he put West and, for the first time, Beetle Bolden in the game, and it’s an extraordinarily tough ask to task them with coming in and making a massive shot.

And then it all fell apart on the final possession.

The inbound went to Miles, which probably wasn’t a surprise, because Huggins does like to get him going at the rim when he knows the opponent will take away Carter … Miles’ foul-shooting problems notwithstanding. The floor was spread with Bolden in the right corner, but Gonzaga wasn’t worried about Adrian on the perimeter all game, so his defender sags. West isn’t a screener. He’s mostly just caught between people in space, and that doesn’t help Miles. There’s no early score here, so the ball has to be reset.

Carter gets it, and Adrian and West set up the friendly and familiar screen-the-screener. Doesn’t work, so Carter goes right, and Adrian tries to draw his defender, but he’s not taking the cheese. No driving room there, so Carter opts for a shot he likes. I’ve no problem with this. We’ve seen Carter hit this before, and it’s early enough to foul Gonzaga if he misses and then come down and run it again. WVU gets a rebound, because Gonzaga is intent on defending the 3-point line, but the Mountaineers are now in danger.

Carter has an opening and tries again and misses again. This is tougher to reason with, but I feel like Carter, after 39 minutes against that defense, knew what a good shot looked like. WVU gets another rebound, there is zero thought given to an inside shot and then WVU gets nothing out of the final 12 seconds.

I think it’s fair to wonder if the offense operates better if the five or four of the five who play together most often are in the game here. Does WVU have a better look if Ahmad and Phillip are in here? This wasn’t cohesive at all, whereas the Bulldogs were switching all over the place and defenders trusted the teammate next to him.

With seven seconds to go, Adrian is trying to spring Carter, and West comes over again, which seemed odd live and seems kdd now, and Gonzaga has three players there to handle it. Carter knows he’s in trouble with nothing to do with the ball, so he unloads it, and the game ends and the season goes with it.

Carter said he should have tried to get inside but the Bulldogs made that impossible, which is true, but he was also right to say it wasn’t a one-play game.

“There are 40 minutes in a basketball game,” WVU guard Jevon Carter said. “If only the last shot mattered, it wouldn’t be a 40-minute game. This came down to the last shot. Yeah, I could have sent it to overtime, but leading up to that point, there were things that could have happened that could have changed the outcome.”