The season seemed to be starting on the right foot for the Missouri Tigers.

The team was diving for loose balls, Aidan Shaw and Trent Pierce had clearly taken steps forward in the offensive games, the Tigers were off and running turning steals into alley-oops much more reminiscent of the 2022-23 season than last year.

Then the second half came and a very familiar feeling fell over the game.

Missouri led by as many as 14 points, but Memphis was able to charge back for an 83-75 season-opening win Monday in Memphis.

“In that first half, I don’t think we executed on the turnovers and the mistakes like I thought we should,” Missouri coach Dennis Gates said. “The second half, they did a tremendous job of getting to the paint and getting to the free-throw line. Being able to shoot that many free throws to obviously begin that half and our inability to keep them out the lane. Those two categories were the categories that allowed them to get 51 total points in the second half.”

After not starting, Iowa transfer Tony Perkins was the first player off the bench for the Tigers and hit a layup with 13:28 left to put Missouri in front 7-5, then a Tamar Bates jumper with 10:22 left gave Missouri the lead it would keep the rest of the first half at 13-12.

Shaw slammed down a dunk off an Anthony Robinson steal, then hit a right-wing 3 to put Missouri up 18-14.

Caleb Grill dished an alley-oop to Shaw before Robinson hit a free throw and dished an assist to Pierce for a fast break dunk to increase the lead to 23-16.

Robinson hit a step-back 3 from the left corner to extend the lead to 29-19 with 6:44 left, but was immediately called for a technical foul for taunting the Memphis bench.

Pierce hit a 3 to extend the lead to 36-22, Missouri’s largest of the night, with 5:04 left in the first half, then hit a layup off a Grill steal to make it 38-25.

Pierce ended with 10 points in the first half and 13 overall, a career high after beating his best mark of 12 that came against Illinois last year as a freshman.

Tyrese Hunter hit two free throws for Memphis to cut Missouri’s lead to 42-32 going into halftime.

Missouri extended back to a 13-point advantage early in the second half when Duke transfer Mark Mitchell turned a steal into an assist to Grill for a fast break dunk, but Memphis quickly cut it back to a 9-point game as Moussa Cisse slammed down a dunk and PJ Haggerty drove for a layup.

Cisse ended with 14 points, seven rebounds and two blocks, while Haggerty had a game-high 25 points on 7-of-16 shooting (10-of-11 at the free-throw line), six rebounds and five assists..

Missouri got back to an 11-point lead with 14:22 left when Tamar Bates hit a pull-up 3, but a Haggerty response 3 cut the lead under 10 points for good.

Dain Dainja used a Haggerty assist for a layup to bring the game to 55-51, then Hunter hit a fast break layup to bring it to 55-53 before Hunter hit a 3 to give Memphis its first lead since the 10:23 mark of the first half.

Gates called a timeout, but the damage was done. Missouri would not retake the lead.

Haggerty extended the lead to five with a layup with 6:39 left, then he made it eight with a free throw at the 5:30 mark.

Hunter created a double-digit margin with a layup that gave Memphis a 76-65 advantage with 1:54 left to play and a PJ Carter 3 gave Memphis its biggest lead of the night at 79-67 with 1:18 left.

Robinson led Missouri with 16 points and seven assists to go with four rebounds, while Bates had 13 points, three assists and three boards.Shaw had 11 points on a perfect shooting night as he was 4-of-4 overall, 1-of-1 from 3 and 2-of-2 at the free-throw line.

Missouri shot 26-of-57 (45.6 percent) overall, 7-of-24 (29.2 percent) from 3 and 16-of-25 (64.0 percent) at the free-throw line.

After shooting 18-of-33 (55 percent) from the floor in the first half, Missouri hit just 8-of-24 (33.3 percent) in the second.

Memphis won the rebounding battle 37-30, but Missouri held a 24-16 lead in points off turnovers and had 11 steals to Memphis’ eight.

“I liked what I saw from a standpoint of our connectivity, our team,” Gates said. “Memphis is a good team, they were able to get on some runs. We weren’t able to execute and we threw the ball away. Having four assists and 11 turnovers in that second half compared to those numbers in the first, that’s where the game got away.”

Missouri (0-1) will return to Mizzou Arena for its home opener against Howard at 7 p.m. Friday.

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