No. 22 Mizzou hoops snaps SEC winning streak with road loss to Texas

AUSTIN, Texas (KMIZ)
The Mizzou men's basketball team lost its first game as a ranked team, on Tuesday night, 61-53 to unranked Texas at the Moody Center.
With the loss, the four-game conference winning streak came to a screeching halt for head coach Dennis Gates and company. MU is now 15-4 on the season and 4-2 in SEC play.
Both teams got off to a slow start, offensively. It took about four minutes for the Tigers to register their first field goal of the game and about eight minutes for the Longhorns. Once the scoring opened up, it never really picked up steam. Just one week after holding a 16-point lead over No. 5 Florida at the half, the Tigers struggled to get to 16 points at the break down in Austin.
MU shot just 29.2 percent from the field and went 1-10 from 3-point range in the first 20 minutes of action.
The Tigers went into halftime down 32-25 at the Moody Center, however, the team came out of the break with some energy. In the span of a couple of minutes, sophomore Trent Pierce drained a big corner triple to cut the deficit to two points. Then, after the Longhorns got up by four once more, senior Tamar Bates drove brought it back to a one possession game with a nice layup in-transition, as MU went on a 7-4 run to start the second half.
Pierce played hero about four and a half minutes into the final 20 minutes of action, as he finally gave his team a tie game and an opportunity off of an in-transition three. Then, MU took its first lead since 13:41 in the first half courtesy of an Anthony Robinson made free throw about five minutes into the second.
It was a slow burn to start the game, but it sure did get interesting in the final few minutes, as the Tigers and Longhorns continued to trade punches. But head coach Dennis Gates and company couldn't hold off Texas in the final stretch, as the Longhorns out-scored the Tigers 29-28 in the last 20 minutes.
No Tigers got into double-figures in the loss, but three co-led scoring. Robinson, Bates and Pierce all ended up with the team-high eight points apiece.
Up next - No. 22 Mizzou will return home to host No. 16 Ole Miss at the Arena on Saturday, Jan. 25. Tip off is slated for 5 p.m.