By: Emil Lippe, KCOU Sports

Fueled by Montaque Gill-Caesar’s 19 points, the Mizzou men’s basketball team improved to 2-1 on Wednesday night as they defeated the Oral Roberts Golden Eagles by a final of 78-64.

The Tigers got off to another slow start, falling behind by as many as eight points in the first half. Oral Roberts hit their first eight field goals of the game to get the early lead. However, Mizzou finished the half on a 10-4 run to cut the ORU lead down to 40-38. Gill-Caesar led all scores with 11 points at halftime.

Coming right out of the locker room, guard Wes Clark scored the first six points of the half for the Tigers to put them up 44-43 with just over 18 minutes left to play in the game.

What made the difference the rest of the game was the barrage of threes that Mizzou rained on the Golden Eagles. The Tigers hit eight of nine from downtown in the second half, including three consecutive threes by Gill-Caesar, Clark, and Isabell to give the Tigers the 58-52 advantage with just over ten minutes to play in the game.

Mizzou would finish the game on a 20-12 run and capture their second victory of the season. Along with Gill-Caesar’s 19 points, Wes Clark scored nine of his 14 points in the second half. Scoring was very balanced as 10 different Tigers scored on the night.

While offense was huge in the second half, the defense did a fantastic job as well, as Missouri would lock down Oral Roberts and hold them to 0-9 from beyond the arc in the second half. The Golden Eagles would also go without a field goal in the last 5:15.

The Tigers will be in action at the Maui Invitational to face off against No. 2 ranked Arizona on November 24 at 4 p.m.