Hanging tough with a highly-touted UCLA squad for more than 30 minutes, the WSU men’s basketball team eventually succumbed to the 11th-ranked Bruins 95-79 due to some careless play with the ball.

The Cougars (11-11, 4-6) turned the ball over 14 times in Wednesday’s game, and the Bruins took advantage, scoring 22 points off WSU’s turnovers.

“We had a lot of bad turnovers,” senior guard Ike Iroegbu said. “They feasted off of our mistakes.”

Iroegbu and senior center Conor Clifford were bright spots offensively for the Cougars and kept the team within striking distance of UCLA, combining for a total of 36 points on 16-of-22 shooting from the field.

After WSU senior forward Josh Hawkinson sunk a pair of free throws to bring the Cougars within five points of UCLA midway through the second half at 62-57, the Bruins (20-3, 7-3) closed the game on a 33-22 run to punctuate the game’s final score.

“I thought UCLA did a great job capitalizing off of our miscues,” WSU Head Coach Ernie Kent said. “I thought our guys were just fatigued mentally.”

UCLA freshman forward and former McDonald’s All-American TJ Leaf was a one-man wrecking crew all night, scoring 32 points and grabbing 14 rebounds. Leaf was 14-18 from the field and despite mixing up its man-to-man and zone defenses, WSU had no answer for the Californian.

“He (Leaf) can do it all at the four position,” Kent said. “I see a very bright future for that young man.”

Leaf’s running mate, freshman guard Lonzo Ball, was as good as advertised and seemed to do a little bit of everything. Ball ended the night with 14 points, seven boards, seven assists and five steals that set up a few highlight-reel dunks from his teammates.

“Ball is a great player,” Kent said. “Anytime you broke down mentally or did something sloppy, boy, he took advantage of it.”

UCLA aggressively got the ball to the rim all game, attempting 19 foul shots in the contest and sinking 16. In comparison, WSU got to the charity stripe just five times in the game, finishing seven-of-10. Iroegbu said that back-to-back steals from the Bruins around the seven-minute mark were the team’s undoing in the second half.

“Games like this, you have to play hard and play smart for the whole 40 minutes,” Iroegbu said. “We know we can play with these teams, but we want to finish out the game and get the W.”

WSU returns to the hardwood on Saturday to take on an 18-win USC Trojans team that upended its crosstown rival on Jan. 25 in an 84-76 win over the Bruins. The game tips off at 5 p.m. at Beasley Coliseum and will air on the Pac-12 Network.