MU men's basketball team stalls

The Missouri men’s basketball team looked a lot like the MU football team on Saturday night.

The Tigers played well in the first half on their way to a 45-37 halftime lead against California in Berkeley, Calif.

But the Golden Bears outscored the Tigers by 22 points in the second half, and Missouri lost 86-72.

A big difference between the two periods was Matt Lawrence.

The Missouri guard scored 15 first-half points on five-of-eight shooting from the three-point arc, but his only second-half points came on two free throws. He missed all three of his second-half three-point attempts.

In the first half, Lawrence was shooting over California’s zone defense, but the Golden Bears switched things up to lock-down MU’s sharpshooter.

Another contributing factor to the Tigers’ loss was the difference in free-throw shooting. Missouri hit nine free throws on 17 attempts while California sank 26 of its 29 attempts.

Tigers guard Stefhon Hannah was bothered by second-half foul trouble and eventually fouled out with 1:47 left.

Just before Hannah picked up his fifth foul, MU forward DeMarre Carroll landed awkwardly under the basket and injured his right knee. There was no word on how serious the injury was, but Carroll did not return to action for the rest of the game.