Well, it’s Groundhog’s Day … Again.

After the Wolves squandered an eight-point lead in the final minute in Friday’s loss in Phoenix, Minnesota held a 10-point advantage over the Kings in Sacramento on Monday after Anthony Edwards tallied an and-1 with three minutes to play.

Minnesota Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards (5) reacts during the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Sacramento Kings in Sacramento, Calif., Monday, Nov. 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Randall Benton)

Surely that would be good enough to seal the deal this time around.

Or not.

Yes, it happened again.

Sacramento went on a 10-0 run over an 81-second span to knot the game and force overtime, where the Kings beat Minnesota, 117-112.

The Wolves committed four turnovers in the extra session to offset the easy offense Edwards generated with the ball in his hands — offense Minnesota could’ve used at the end of regulation.

The Timberwolves led by 12 with nearly 10 minutes to play in the fourth frame after Mike Conley drilled a triple. From that point forward, Minnesota went 2 for 19 from the field to close the quarter.

“We’re struggling right now to find a good rhythm offensively all around,” Wolves coach Chris Finch told reporters. “We’ve got to get back to the way we were playing about a week ago when it comes to offense. And a lot of things we were doing then are missing now.”

And yet Minnesota still led by 10 late until that fateful minute-plus that played out like this:

-Malik Monk jumper to cut the lead to eight

-Anthony Edwards missed shot

-Malik Monk made 3-pointer to cut the lead to five

-Anthony Edwards missed shot

-Malik Monk layup to cut the lead to three

-Jaden McDaniels missed shot

-DeMar DeRozan bucket plus the foul, with a made free throw to tie the game.

“They made some plays,” Wolves center Rudy Gobert told reporters of the Kings. “They made some hustle plays, they made some big shots, big plays down the stretch and they got back in the game.”

There were still 89 seconds remaining in regulation at that point. Julius Randle made free throws to put Minnesota back on top with a minute to play, but DeRozan did the same on the other end to re-knot the contest.

Edwards and DeRozan then traded misses to send the game to overtime.

Neither team was close to clean in the extra session, but DeRozan and Keegan Murray made enough shots to help the Kings (5-13) fend off Edwards and the mistake-plagued Wolves (10-7).

In an ode to Friday, the game effectively ended when Randle turned the ball over while trying to inbound the ball with Minnesota down four and 18 seconds to play. At which point, four Wolves players stood and watched, seemingly contest to let the Kings dribble the clock out before Mike Conley finally raced over to commit a foul.

“Yeah, just some really rough plays from our team,” said Gobert, who finished with 11 points and 13 boards, but also had a costly giveaway in overtime. “Seems like (mental lapses). We didn’t play super connected. And then I feel like we let the frustration get to us, and we can’t do that if we want to be a championship team. … No matter what happened before, we’ve got to find a way to have our spirit high and the spirit of a champion to try to always believe. Things are not always going to go our way, but until the buzzer sounds, we still have an opportunity. … Tonight, it felt like we didn’t have our spirit.”

The loss is Minnesota’s second straight, but first this season against a team with a losing record after opening the campaign with 10-straight wins against such foes.

Edwards finished with 43 points, seven rebounds and three steals. He’s scored 41-plus in each of the Wolves’ last two losses. But Minnesota lost his 40 minutes by 12 points, the same plus-minus recorded by Randle, who committed five turnovers — including two in overtime.

Minnesota tallied just 21 assists. Wolves not named Edwards combined to shoot 35% from the floor on a night where Minnesota committed 16 turnovers.

“I think we got a little stagnant offensively,” Gobert said. “The ball stopped moving.”

DeRozan finished with 33 points, while Murray added 26 and Monk had 22, 13 of which came in the fourth quarter.

Monday’s loss may be more infuriating for Minnesota than even Friday’s defeat, given the quality of opponent. Minnesota never trailed in regulation and seemingly had control throughout the contest. But every time it looked as though the Wolves would runaway with the game — as they’ve done so many times against cellar dwellers already this season — a costly mistake or a couple minutes of porous defense would bring Sacramento right back into the equation.

Now Minnesota will try again to right the ship Wednesday in Oklahoma City against the defending champion and league-leading Thunder in a game the Timberwolves have to have to advance to the NBA Cup knockout round.

Such a win would require 48 minutes of effort and execution. The lack of the latter continues to bite the Wolves when games matter most.

“Talking is great, but let’s see if we care,” Gobert said. “Let’s see if we actually care about doing the things that we need to do to win and putting our teammates before ourselves. It’s what it’s about, at the end of the day. Hopefully, we learn. We’ve still got an amazing opportunity ahead of us, but we’ve got to decide who we want to be.”

Minnesota United’s defense-first game plan was panning out almost to perfection Monday night through 70 minutes of an MLS Western Conference semifinal in San Diego.

The Loons were conceding a ton of possession but few scoring chances, and providing some threats on their own counter attacks.

Then San Diego’s do-everything attacker Anders Dreyer got space and ripped a powerful shot into the upper corner of the net in the 72nd minute for a 1-0 win at Snapdragon Stadium.

Top-seeded San Diego ended the fourth-seeded Loons’ season and will host second-seeded Vancouver in the West final at 4 p.m. Saturday.

The Loons’ season ends in the Western Conference semifinal for a second straight year.

Dreyer headlined the Loons’ scouting report. The Dane won MLS newcomer of the year with 36 combined goals and primary assists — second to only Lionel Messi (45) this season.

After a scoreless opening 45 minutes, the second half heated up before play started. Loons coach Eric Ramsay and SDFC coach Mikey Varas exchanged words, and Ramsay shoved Varas, which drew a yellow card.

Then in the reopening stages, Robin Lod cut back inside the box and had an open goal, but Ian Picher made a goal-line clearance in the 47th minute.

In the 65th, Kelvin Yeboah’s breakaway attempt was cut down by SDFC backup goalkeeper Pablo Sisniega.

Ramsay expected San Diego was going to dominate the ball in the first half and likely have more scoring chances, but they wanted to avoid giving up an early goal. That is what cost them against Los Angeles Galaxy in the West semifinal last year and nearly burned them in the first-round series against Seattle.

San Diego had nearly 80% of the ball — well above its MLS-leading 60% during the regular season — but Minnesota kept SDFC to zero shots on goal in the first half.

Varas wanted his team to test the Loons with overloads down the flanks, but it didn’t create breakthrough.

In the first half, Lod had the Loons’ two best chances, but his first shot in the 18th minute was blocked, and he couldn’t get enough on an attempt fed to him on a great diagonal pass from Pereyra in first-half stoppage time.

Ramsay made two changes to his starting XI on Monday. Center back Carlos Harvey stepped in for Jefferson Diaz, who has a thigh issue, and left wingback Anthony Markanich came in for suspended Joseph Rosales.

Minnesota’s front six stayed the same: Lod, Nectar Triantis, Wil Trapp, Joaquin Pereyra, Bongi Hlongwane and Yeboah.

The two teams split the regular-season series. San Diego won 4-2 in St. Paul in June, while Minnesota had a 3-1 victory in San Diego in September. San Diego had 66% in both its games against Minnesota in the regular season.

Minnesota’s Republican Congressional delegation and state lawmakers are calling on the U.S. Attorney’s office to investigate whether fraud schemes helped fund terrorism after President Donald Trump pledged that he would end temporary legal protections for Somali immigrants in Minnesota.

Trump’s move and GOP calls for an investigation come on the heels of a report from a conservative think tank alleging that some of the millions of dollars stolen from the state through fraud ended up in the hands of the Somalia-based Islamist terrorist group al-Shabaab.

It’s not the first time there have been allegations of a link between fraud in Minnesota and terrorism.

The same premise was at the center of a similar 2018 local news story that spurred action at the state Capitol and a nonpartisan state investigation that found no definitive connection between fraud and terrorism.

Citing unnamed sources and a former counterterrorism investigator, writers for City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute, claim that some money sent back from Minnesota to Somalia through informal networks likely would have benefited the group, which controls large swaths of Somalia.

The report shows no definite link between hundreds of millions of dollars in fraud this decade in Minnesota and terrorist groups, though it asserts that al-Shabaab received cuts of money transferred from the U.S. to Somalia through the hawala system, an informal money transfer network used by the Somali diaspora.

City Journal’s source for this claim is Glenn Kerns, a former detective with the Seattle Police Department, who investigated hawala networks while working with a federal terrorism task force in the 2010s.

In 2018, then-retired Kerns shared similar findings with KMSP-TV, or Fox 9 — day care fraud in Minnesota and money transferred to areas controlled by al-Shabaab in Somalia. An agency whistleblower claimed $100 million in stolen tax dollars had gone overseas.

Legislative auditor investigation in 2018

A subsequent report by the nonpartisan Minnesota Office of the Legislative Auditor couldn’t substantiate claims that money went to terrorist groups overseas. The 2019 report found fraud, though there was no evidence that it reached $100 million.

OLA did acknowledge, however, that money obtained through fraud sent overseas could end up going to terrorists.

“We found that federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies are concerned that terrorist organizations in certain countries, including Somalia, obtain and use money sent from the United States by immigrants and refugees to family and friends in those countries,” the report said.

City Journal authors Ryan Thorpe and Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and author who rose to prominence as an opponent of critical race theory in American education, cite Kerns’ work as a piece of evidence that money continues to fund the Somali terrorist group, as well as two unnamed sources.

For every dollar that is transferred from the Twin Cities back to Somalia, “Al-Shabaab is . . . taking a cut of it,” said one unnamed source described as a former member of the Minneapolis Joint Terrorism Task Force.

A second unnamed source claimed “the largest funder of Al-Shabaab is the Minnesota taxpayer.” It’s unclear, though, how much money the group might have received.

GOP calls for investigation

Members of the Minnesota Senate and House Republican caucuses sent letters to U.S. Attorney Daniel Rosen on Monday asking Minnesota federal prosecutors to investigate the allegations. Minnesota U.S. Rep. Tom Emmer, U.S. Rep. Michelle Fischbach, U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad and U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber sent a similar letter on Friday.

Dozens of fraud cases have emerged in Minnesota in recent years, with much of it centered at the state’s Department of Human Services. Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson estimated in July that fraud in the state could top $1 billion.

In the largest case, federal prosecutors allege a scheme centered around the nonprofit Feeding Our Future defrauded the government of $250 million in federal funds from a pandemic-era meal program. In that case, the money was administered by the Minnesota Department of Education.

“The notion that these dollars could be flowing to foreign terrorist organizations adds a truly disturbing additional element,” state House Republicans said in their letter. “If confirmed to be true, immediate action must be taken at the state and federal level to crack down on remittances and other payments that are making their way to terrorist organizations.”

DFL leaders condemn Trump’s move on protections

The office of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said it has not heard anything about the allegations from state or federal law enforcement. The U.S. Attorney’s office did not respond to requests for comment.

Democratic-Farmer-Labor leaders have condemned Trump’s pledge to revoke temporary protective status for Somali migrants in Minnesota, claiming the administration was using the report to pursue deportations as part of an anti-Muslim and xenophobic agenda.

Dozens, including U.S. Reps. Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar, DFL legislators and activists gathered at the Capitol on Monday to address reporters. Omar said incidents of fraud could not be blamed on the Somali community at large.

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“There is not a single (piece of) evidence that the president or his cronies have put forth that there are any single resource from taxpayers in Minnesota that has gone to aid and abet terrorism,” she said. “That language puts the lives of Somalis not only in Minnesota but across the country in danger. And if the president believed that and he had evidence, he would take people to court.”

A little over 700 Somalis have temporary protective status nationwide, with around 400 in Minnesota. The status protects immigrants from deportation. There are more than 80,000 Somalis in Minnesota, the most of any state.

The Gophers punched a ticket to their Thanksgiving tournament title game with a win Monday, and with it, earned a matchup with a tournament team from a year ago.

Minnesota downed South Florida 57-45 in the opening game of the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship in Nassau, Bahamas.

Gophers guard Amaya Battle dribbles the ball during Minnesota’s 57-45 win over South Florida in the first round of the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship on Monday, Nov. 24, 2025 in Nassau, Bahamas (Meghan Bielich / Gophers Athletics)

The Gophers will meet Alabama in the Junkanoo Division title bout Wednesday. The Crimson Tide (6-0), who beat Harvard, 80-60, in the other matchup, were a No. 5 seed in last year’s NCAA Tournament who reached the second round before falling to Maryland in double overtime.

That could very well serve as Minnesota’s best nonconference game on its slate this season, and is another chance for the Gophers to earn a quality win away from the confines of Williams Arena after Minnesota fell in Kansas last week.

Minnesota controlled the game from the outset against South Florida, utilizing a 12-0 run to take an early 18-4 lead. The Gophers led by 15 at the half and as many as 19 in the third frame.

Minnesota held South Florida to 33% shooting from the floor, including just 2 for 18 from distance. Fatou Diakite tallied 16 points to pace the Bulls (3-3), while the rest of South Florida’s starters went a combined 6 for 30 from the field.

The Gophers weren’t much better offensively, shooting 34% from the field. But Minnesota did hit seven triples and turned the ball over 17 times to South Florida’s 20.

Grace Grocholski paced Minnesota with 14 points. She was one of three Gophers in double figures, along with Mara Braun — who had 11 points to go with two blocked shots — and Brylee Glenn, who had 10 points to go with four dimes.

Amaya Battle had nine points, five boards and two steals, while Sophie Hart grabbed 10 boards.

The Gophers (5-1) did also shoot 34% from the field and scored exactly 57 points against Kansas. Better offensive production will surely be needed Wednesday versus what Minnesota has delivered of late if the U is to contend with an opponent of Alabama’s ilk.

Minnesota is certainly capable of it, having scored 88-plus points in each of its first four games of the season.

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