MU women's basketball still winless on road in Big 12 play

The Missouri women's basketball team's attempt to win its first conference game as the visiting team and also pick up back-to-back Big 12 fell short against Nebraska.

The Tigers defeated the Huskers earlier this season in Columbia, but they lost 65-52 in Lincoln on Saturday night.

"We just got to get better from this," said Missouri coach Cindy Stein in a radio interview after the game. "It's hard to play on the road, but we were in a position to win this, and unfortunately the score doesn't indicate how close it was."

Missouri led by as many as nine points in the first half and briefly led at the beginning of the second half before Nebraska went on a run to open up a double-digit lead.

"I thought our shot selection was horrible in that streak when they jumped on us," Stein said. "We took early shots, quick shots, and, you know, up to that point we'd been kind of picking them apart because we were patient."

Missouri (12-13, 3-9 in the Big 12) got its most impressive win of the season on Wednesday night at home against No. 16 Kansas State with an impressive defensive performance. However, Missouri was unable to duplicate that success against Nebraska (12-13, 3-9 in the Big 12), sending the Huskers to the free-throw line 24 times in the game.

"I thought we had stupid fouls," Stein said. "We don't mind hustle fouls, but some of those things were stupid fouls."

Jessra Johnson led Missouri's offense for a second consecutive game. The junior forward scored 23 points and had 11 rebounds for her third double-double of the season. Shakara Jones finished with 11 points.

A win against Nebraska would have given the Tigers their first back-to-back wins in conference play since the 2006-2007 season.

Stein said she was disappointed by her team's morale during the game.

"I thought that our leadership was really bad on the floor," Stein said. "We had a lot of times when the rough spots were coming — we had nobody saying anything, and that, to me, is poor leadership, so our challenge to them is obviously to find that. You've got to have people stepping up and doing some things."

Missouri will play No. 12 Texas at 6:30 p.m.  Tuesday at the Mizzou Arena.