As they have the past few games, the Missouri Tigers stayed with one of the best teams in the country. But a stretch of about three minutes gave the Tigers’ their ninth SEC loss and sank the team under .500 for the first time since a 1-2 start to the season.

“We keep talking about being able to put 40 minutes together,” Missouri coach Robin Pingeton said. “And I thought that last maybe two and a half minutes of the third, we had some tough possessions defensively. But we regrouped.”

The No. 6 LSU Tigers used a 12-1 run to end the third quarter to build an eventual 71-60 win as the teams played even outside of those three minutes.

“We started making shots,” LSU coach Kim Mulkey said of the run. “Not to take anything away from Missouri, they’ve been in a lot of games lately, take it down to the wire, so we knew they were playing good basketball.”

The pair of Tiger teams were tied at 38 with 4:28 left in the third quarter, then the game went to the third-quarter media timeout with 3:57 left.

Out of the break, Mikaylah Williams drained a 3, three of her 16 points for LSU to go with five assists, then Aneesah Morrow added a putback layup to help power her double-double of 13 points and 14 rebounds to go with four steals.

A De’Myla Brown free throw broke the five-point streak, but LSU poured in the next eight points as the quarter came to a close to make it a 51-39 game going into the fourth quarter.

“It’s the same story every game lately, right?” Pingeton said. “We’re right there, right? So close. But what a great showing by our kids.”

Missouri quickly cut the lead to seven at the start of the fourth quarter when Laniah Randle hit a free throw, Grace Slaughter connected on a transition layup and Randle added a layup of her own to bring the Black & Gold within 51-44.

Slaughter ended with 18 points to lead the home Tigers.

“Just trying to do what the team needs,” Slaughter said. “… Once again, I feel like I play with a great group of teammates that just do a good job of finding me.”

Randle finished with 15 points and three assists.

But LSU quickly extended back to a double-digit lead and never let Missouri back within six, though an Ashton Judd 3 with 3:26 left to play did bring the home Tigers within 62-56.

Judd finished with 17 points and three rebounds.

Missouri, which entered the game as the top 3-point shooting team in the SEC – making 37.9 percent of its attempts from deep, just ahead of Alabama at 37.3 percent in second then there’s a big drop off to Florida at 34.4 percent in third – opened the game just 2-of-12 from deep before finishing the game hitting 4-of-7 to keep the game close.

“We did a much better in the second half of that ball movement,” Pingeton said.

Missouri took an early lead to start the game when a Judd jumper followed by one from Randle made it 4-3 Missouri with 7:00 left in the first quarter.

The home Tigers extended as far as a 13-7 lead with 2:32 left after a couple of free throws from Abbey Schreacke, then led by six again at 15-9 after a Nyah Wilson layup.

LSU cut the lead to 15-11 going to the second quarter, then quickly jumped ahead in the second after a Williams 3 made it 19-17 with 7:38 left before the break.

After shooting just 4-of-14 from the field and 0-of-2 from 3 in the first quarter, LSU connected on 7-of-13 (53.8 percent) overall and 4-of-5 (80 percent) from deep in the second quarter to take a 31-27 lead into halftime.

LSU led the rebounding battle 40-30, with 16 offensive boards that led to a 20-3 advantage in second-chance points.

LSU also led the battle for bench points 21-5.

Missouri shot 21-of-52 (40.4 percent) overall, 6-of-19 (31.6 percent) from 3 and 12-of-19 (63.2 percent) at the free-throw line.

“We’ve got to do a better job at the free-throw line, for sure,” Pingeton said. “We’re leaving too many points out there from the free-throw line and we have the last couple games.”

LSU shot 23-of-59 (39 percent) from the field, 7-of-15 (46.7 percent) from deep and 18-of-24 (75 percent) from the stripe.

Missouri (12-13, 1-9 SEC) has just six games left in the regular season with the next one coming at 3 p.m. Sunday when the Tigers go on the road to take on Texas A&M.