DaQuan Jeffries didn’t mince words about Tulsa’s poor showing against No. 17 Houston.

“I think the effort we gave at the end of the second half, we should have had that for the full 40 minutes," said Jeffries.

Jeffries wasn’t the problem against Houston with his 17 points, five rebounds, five assists and a steal. But Tulsa’s uninspired effort in the middle of the game doomed the Golden Hurricane, as Houston won 77-65 Sunday afternoon in front of 4,023 fans at the Reynolds Center.

Tulsa (12-9, 2-6 AAC) trailed by only three points at 24-21 with just over five minutes left in the first half. But for the next 15 minutes, Tulsa stunk like an outhouse on a hot summer day, getting outscored 38-20 during that span to fall behind by 21 points at 62-41. (Note: the score posted 61-41 at the time, but Houston was later awarded an extra point after a timeout on a shot where Armoni Brooks’ right foot was squarely on the 3-point line.)

Only then did the Golden Hurricane awaken from their slumber. Tulsa started to play the way it is capable of playing.

The Golden Hurricane whittled the lead down to as little as eight points with the ball after a bucket by Jeriah Horne with 3:23 left. A three-point attempt that would have cut it to five points soon afterward by Horne just missed, and Martins Igbanu had a great shot at the rebound and an easy put back but couldn’t hold onto the ball.

The telling sequence of the game came in the first half when three consecutive three’s by the Cougars extended a 24-21 lead to 33-21. The last two three-pointers were ridiculously wide open, and it was clear at that point that the game was going to get ugly for Tulsa very quickly.

“(The effort) was there, but close to the halftime mark, it kind of winded down,” said the always understated Jeffries.

Houston (20-1, 7-1) had made only one of its first 13 three-point attempts up to that point, but then connected on six of its next 11 to close the half, and 10 of its final 22 attempts to finish 11 of 35 (31.4%) for the game.

“Just having a sense of urgency and stopping those shots before they get them off,” Jeffries said of Houston suddenly getting hot.

Tulsa coach Frank Haith agreed with Jeffries.

“We weren’t playing with a sense of urgency on defense,” Haith said.

Even though Tulsa was facing a more athletic and taller team in the Cougars, there still was no excuse for the staggering discrepancy in rebounding. Tulsa got outrebounded 49-24, including 30-13 in the first half. TU had only three offensive rebounds, compared with 16 by Houston, and had no points off of offensive rebounds.

The Cougars are a strong rebounding team, but still only came into the game outrebounding their opponents by 5.4 rebounds per game in conference play. The Cougars continually went over the back of Tulsa’s defenders to snag rebounds.

Chris Harris, a 6-foot-10 junior who is perhaps the worst looking free throw shooter in basketball (missed the rim completely to the left on one attempt), led the Cougars with 10 boards to go along with 5 points.

“Boy, we have to figure it out and fix it,” Haith said. “This is bad. Disappointing they beat us that badly on the boards.”

Brooks led Houston with 22 points, including six of 14 from behind the arc, which accounted for all of his made shots from the field.

Behind Jeffries, Horne had 15 points, while Igbanu had 11 and Sterling Taplin had 10 (all in the second half).

One of the reasons Tulsa couldn’t close the lead any further was that it made only 15 of 23 free throws (65.3 percent). TU also only made 6 of 20 three-point attempts (30 percent), and 22 of 53 (41.5 percent) from the field for the game.

“To beat a good team, you can’t squander those opportunities when you have them,” said Haith of missed free throws and open shots.

With Tulsa’s season on the verge of going into a free fall, Jeffries was clear about what he needs to do as a senior leader on the team to keep that from happening.

“It’s just me getting onto those guys,” Jeffries said. “It’s the time of the season where guys don’t really need a pat on the back. You just got to get onto them and get that intensity out of them.”