ST. LOUIS – The University of Missouri-St. Louis men's basketball team struggled to get its offense going in the second half of its 62-46 loss to Rockhurst on Saturday afternoon at the Mark Twain Building. The Tritons drop to 3-5, 1-1 GLVC while the Hawks improve to 4-4, 1-1 GLVC.

Rockhurst jumped out to an early lead but UMSL's defense clamped down as they held the Hawks to just eight points over an eight-minute stretch in the first half. The Tritons used that to their advantage hitting eight of their next 16 shots including four threes to build its largest lead of the contest at 25-14 on a three-pointer from Savon Wykle with less than four minutes to play in the stanza.

Rockhurst knocked down three of its last six shots of the half to cut UMSL's lead to nine at the break.

The Hawks opened the second half on a 7-2 run to cut the Triton lead to four on a three-pointer from Miles White. UMSL pushed its lead back to eight on a dunk from Troy Glover II but Rockhurst wouldn't go away thanks to an 8-0 run to tie the game at 35 with 12:30 left in the game.

The Tritons took their final lead of the contest with less than 12 minutes to play. Wykle hit 1-of-2 at the foul line and Glover II got the rebound off the miss and scored on a put back. That would be UMSL's last field goal for 10 minutes as Rockhurst went on a 20-1 run to take its largest lead of the game at 60-40 on a layup by Davit Kakushadze with 3:09 to go.

The Tritons were outscored in the second half 42-17 as the Hawks shot 57 percent from the floor including 5-of-8 from three while UMSL shot only 29 percent and was 0-of-6 from the perimeter.

The Tritons finished the game shooting 36 percent (18-for-50) from the field, 4-of-18 from three and 55 percent at the foul line. They outrebounded Rockhurst 34-30 but turned the ball over 16 times in the contest. Terrell Kabala led UMSL in scoring with 13 points while Glover II finished with a double-double scoring 12 points and grabbing 10 boards.

Rockhurst shot 46 percent (25-for-54) from the field in the game including 5-of-15 from three and shot 88 percent at the charity stripe. Kakushadze led all scorers with 18 points and was joined in double figures by White with 12 and Brian Hawthorne added 11.

The Tritons are back in action next Thursday (Dec. 7) as they travel to Quincy to take on the Hawks at 7:30 p.m.