Mizzou failed to spread holiday joy to its home fans, never finding the lead in a 76-63 upset loss in its holiday game against Oral Roberts.

Oral Roberts came out swinging, racking up a nine-point lead after the first quarter. The Golden Eagles' suffocating defense an 18-6 run to take the Tigers by surprise. Missouri's transfers made a dent in what was a double-digit lead to close the quarter, with buckets from Tionna Herron and Laniah Randle.

"Out of the gates they were the aggressors," head coach Robin Pingeton said. "It seemed we lacked some energy, lacked communication, grittiness."

The second quarter belonged to Randle, as she worked to drag the Tigers back to five at the half. She finished the half as both teams leading scorer with 13 alongside four rebounds on 6-9 shooting. She finished the game as the Tigers' leading scorer with 21 total points.

But Randle's efforts were thwarted by the long-range offense from Oral Roberts, hitting a three every time Mizzou struggled to tie the game. The Golden Roberts finished the half 5-13 from beyond-the-arc, while the Tigers couldn't match at 0-5. As a whole Mizzou finished 3-16 from three, shooting themselves out of the game in a sense. Abbey Schreacke finally hit a bump in the road, finishing 0-5 from three with only two points.

"I didn't really particularly love our ball movement," Pingeton said. "We didn't do a very good job reading how they were defending different screening action. I thought there was some opportunities during their switches to slip cut...our alertness, our focus seemed to be alittle bit off, and we didn't execute very well."

Another issue came across with each team's ability to capitalize on turnovers in the half. While both teams committed 10 turnovers, ORU capitalized by turning those into 10 points compared to only 2 for Mizzou.

After Oral Roberts pushed the lead BACK to double digits, Mizzou closed the gap to 56-52 to end the third quarter. The highlight of those buckets came on the ever rare four-point-play from De'Myla Brown in the midst of an 11-1 run. Brown helped rally the offense in the half with 9 points on 3-6 shooting off the bench.

On the opposite end the Golden Eagles end the quarter with a four-point play of their own to retake the lead after the Tigers tied it. Angie Ngalakulondi had a rough quarter, who was relegated to the bench after her four fouls in the quarter. As a result, it came down to Hannah Linthacum to run the five for the remainder of the fourth.

The fourth quarter belonged to the road team, finishing the game on a 20-13 run to secure the upset. It all came down to made or missed shots: The Tigers finished the quarter 9-13 from the field with the Golden Eagles ran circles around them at 5-20.

Offensively Ashton Judd finished with a strong performance with 18 points on 50% from the field. One player who couldn't get involved was Grace Slaughter, ending the game with only four points on 1-6 shooting.

Mizzou will look to rebound in its last non-conference game of the year at home against Jackson State at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Dec. 29