For more than one half, the Washington State men’s basketball team played the No. 3 team in the country tough, but a deficit in talent eventually caught up the Cougars as they lost to the Oklahoma Sooners 88-60 Tuesday in the opening round of the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic in Honolulu.

Despite some lulls in scoring, the Sooners (9-0) star Buddy Hield was as good as – if not better than – advertised. The senior guard led all scorers with 25 points, going 5-8 from 3-point range, and was integral in OU pulling away from the Cougars (7-3) in the second half, scoring eight points in the first two-and-a-half minutes after the break.

WSU put together an excellent first half of basketball, going into the locker room down 38-31, but the Sooners proved why they are the No. 3 team in the country in the second half, at one point going on a 21-2 run to put them up 63-43 with 11:23 to play.

Junior forward Josh Hawkinson again filled out the score sheet for the Cougs, notching 16 points and 10 rebounds to pick up his fifth straight double-double, his seventh of the season. Junior guard Ike Iroegbu put in another nice performance for the Cougs, scoring 16 points to tie for the team high with Hawkinson.

Freshman forward Dante Buford scored a season-high 11 points off the bench for OU, but he made his presence most felt at the end of the first half when he corralled a missed 3-pointer by freshman guard Christian James and dunked it with two hands in the same motion. The put-back gave the Sooners a 38-31 lead at the half.

With 3:33 to go in the first half and the Cougars trailing 30-23, redshirt junior forward Valentine Izundu showed the physical prowess that has garnered attention from Cougar fans this season by blocking a dunk by senior guard Isaiah Cousins in the open floor. Izundu slammed the ball against the board at the top of the square, flexing his impressive vertical in the process.

WSU went on a 9-0 run after the first media timeout of the game to give it an 11-10 lead with just more than 12 minutes to go in the first half, but OU’s Hield would respond quickly, knocking down a 3-pointer to relinquish WSU’s only lead of the game.

The Cougars will take on Northern Iowa next. WSU will play its second round matchup today at 8:30 p.m. on ESPNU.

Reporting by Dustin Brennan