A raucous Beasley Coliseum crowd of 4,025 was able to will the Washington State men’s basketball team to overtime against the Washington Huskies, but poor free throw shooting in the clutch and fatigue prevented the Cougars from sealing the deal, falling Saturday to their cross-state rivals, 99-95.

“I thought the atmosphere was just absolutely fantastic,” WSU Head Coach Ernie Kent said in the postgame news conference. “For that young team to play as well as they played in this environment is a credit again to (UW Head Coach Lorenzo Romar) and how he coaches that young group of guys.”

This was the first time this season the Cougars (9-6, 1-2 Pac-12) lost when scoring more than 80 points in a game – they had been 6-0 – and the first time they lost after taking a halftime lead – they had been 9-0. The Huskies (11-4, 3-0) boast the most prolific scoring offense in the Pac-12 this season, as Saturday’s game was their seventh time scoring more than 90 points.

After surrendering a nine-point lead with less than four minutes to go in regulation, guard Andrew Andrews, Washington’s lone senior, led the Huskies in the overtime period by scoring six of their 10 points despite playing most of the extra minutes with four fouls. Andrews would end up as the game’s leading scorer with 29 points.

“Andrews has done a fantastic job of leading a group of young guys, his leadership is really, really evident on the floor,” Kent said. “We tried like crazy to foul Andrews out of the game, because we knew he had the ability to control the game down the stretch.”

Down 85-76 with 3:41 to play following an alley-oop dunk by UW junior forward Malik Dime, the Cougs gritted their teeth and went on an 11-2 run to close out regulation and force overtime. Junior guard Ike Iroegbu had six of the Cougars’ points during that stretch, including the free throw with 18 seconds to go that tied the game at 87 and sent it to overtime.

“When that roar roared up in the building, it gave us the opportunity to send it to overtime,” Kent said. “That’s where our fans need to understand it’s important we have that crowd there, because it gives you a chance to do that.”

Iroegbu was a leader for the Cougs on the scoring end all game, and as a result tallied a career-high 28 points. He also chipped in three rebounds, three assists and committed four turnovers.

“I did good scoring but I had too many turnovers, so I’ve gotta fix that next game,” Iroegbu said.

Junior forward Josh Hawkinson had a career night as well as he picked up his 10th straight double-double – a WSU record – before halftime, and ended up with 21 points and a career-high 20 rebounds against the No. 2 rebounding team in the country.

The Cougars got to the line plenty of times – evidenced by the Huskies committing 30 fouls – but were hardly efficient when they got there, shooting 62.2 percent in their 37 attempts, compared to Washington’s 76.7 percent.

Junior guard Charles Callison was a big reason why four Huskies fouled out of the game and two others finished with four fouls. He effectively slashed to the basket several times in the closing minutes and kept getting to the free throw line as a result. Callison was responsible for UW freshmen forwards Noah Dickerson and Marquese Chriss picking up their fifth fouls in overtime.

Callison got the Beasley Coliseum crowd on its feet in the second half as he split four UW defenders to go coast-to-coast and finished off the play with a left-handed layup while being fouled by freshman forward Matisse Thybulle. Callison sunk his free throw to complete the 3-point play to give WSU a 66-64 lead with 11:44 to go.

“I was just trying to be aggressive and trying to get to the hole and make a big play for the team and try to get us back into the game,” Callison said.

Early on, it appeared as though UW freshman guard Dejounte Murray would control the tempo as he scored 13 points in the first seven minutes of the game. He got to that point by following up a 3-point bucket with a steal on defense and then finishing off an alley-oop from Andrews in transition. The 20-second flurry gave the UW a 17-12 lead at the 13:20 mark of the opening half, the largest advantage for either team at that point. But the Cougars were able to keep Murray scoreless for the next 12 minutes, and as a result took a 49-43 lead into the half. Murray would end up scoring 25.

Last season, the Cougars lost their home game against the Huskies, 87-84, on a buzzer-beater 3 by Andrews, but won their early season game against Washington in Seattle, 80-77. The Cougs will have to wait until their regular season finale to try repeating last year’s Apple Cup series as they play the Huskies on March 2 in Montlake.

With the win, the Huskies remained the lone unbeaten team in Pac-12 play, and the Cougars fell back into a tie for eighth. Next up for the Cougs will be the last place Arizona State Sun Devils, Thursday in Tempe. Tipoff for that game is scheduled for 5 p.m. on the Pac-12 Networks.