Jan 26, 2002

Final Stats?|? Quotes?|? Notes

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Saturday night was not a good one for the University of Missouri women's basketball team. The Tigers suffered a 78-56 setback to No. 20/19 Colorado in front of 2,521 fans at the Hearnes Center.

The loss was Missouri's third straight of the season and each one has been to a team ranked in the nation's top 20. MU had not lost three straight games since the 1999-2000 season when it lost 72-64 to Colorado on Feb. 26, 80-66 to Nebraska on March 2 and 83-68 to Colorado on March 7 in the Big 12 Conference Tournament.

Colorado opened the game with a 22-9 run behind the play of senior guard Jenny Roulier who scored 14 of the Buffaloes' first 16 points. The Tigers answered with an 11-2 run to make it 24-20. Melanie Fisher scored five of those points and Amy Loftus added four points during MU's run.

The scoring outburst was a sign of things to come from Loftus, who finished with a career-high 16 points.

CU scored six-straight points to push its lead back to 10 points, 30-20, and the Buffaloes were never threatened again.

Roulier had 19 first-half points to power CU to the 42-31 halftime lead.

Colorado did not stop there as it extended its lead to as many as 24 points before the game ended.

Kerensa Barr saw two streaks end. First, she missed a free throw to snap her streak of 26 consecutive made attempts and she finished with a season-low six points, snapping her streak of 20 straight games of scoring in double figures.

Next up for the Tigers (12-6, 3-4 Big 12) will be No. 14/10 Iowa State (15-5, 3-5 Big 12) at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Ames, Iowa.