WSU vs. Washington basketball final score: Huskies take down Cougs in OT, 99-95

After a late Ike Iroegbu shot was off, and UW's Andrew Andrews was able to grab the rebound away from Josh Hawkinson on a highly questionable no-call, the Washington Huskies escaped with a 99-95 overtime win over the Washington State Cougars on Saturday afternoon.

The Cougs will be lamenting some key free throw misses. Hawkinson had a great game for the Cougs, with 21 points and 20 rebounds, but missed a free throw to tie the game at 96 with 30 seconds to play in OT. WSU wouldn't score again.

Ike Iroegbu had the best game of his career, logging a career-high 28 points and keying a WSU run that brought them back from a 10-point deficit in the final four minutes of regulation. With the Cougs trailing 86-85 in the waning seconds, Ike missed the first of two free throws before tying the game.

Charles Callison struggled all day from the field, hitting just 5 of 16, but going 2 of 4 from the line in overtime hurt the most.

But WSU can also lament its lack of aggressiveness for much of the second half that allowed UW to take and build a lead. The Huskies hit a lot of shots, but also crashed the offensive glass relentlessly on their misses. Meanwhile, the Cougars went away from an attacking style that helped build their first-half advantage.

WSU finally got aggressive on the defensive glass and in transition with its back against the wall to force the overtime. But it missed an opportunity to stay aggressive, outside of a few Charles Callison drives, early in the OT period. UW had a number of players at four fouls, and two of them fouled out, but it could have been even more.

The loss is made more painful, because after a turnover-filled early first half, WSU held on to the ball and made offense look easy. The Cougs posted a 61.2 effective field goal percentage in the initial 20 minutes, and took advantage of UW's aggressive to hit 11 of 17 free throws.

On the defensive end, Wazzu limited UW's offensive rebounding in the first half. That, plus the good offense, meant a six-point halftime lead that wouldn't last.

UW was paced by a game-high 29 points from Andrew Andrews and 25 from Dejounte Murray. The Huskies are now 3-0 in conference play. WSU falls to 1-2, and 9-5 overall.