Missouri men bag another group of Tigers.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

COLUMBIA, Mo. _ Grambling State knew it had no chance of really matching up with the No. 3 Missouri men's basketball team Saturday. So it went with a zone-`em, junk-`em, hot-shooting, charge-of-the-light-brigade game plan.

Nice try. And it even mildly frustrated MU for the first half. But Grambling's Tigers ended up like Jackson State's Tigers had Thursday _ out-Tigered by a better group of growlers.

MU stayed unbeaten with a 100-76 victory that was notable for showing how many ways this team can win and for how the crowd of 12,389 stayed interested.

"One thing that's neat is to look up and see the upper deck full," MU coach Quin Snyder said of the Hearnes Center nosebleed section, which seems as far away as Boonville. "The kinds of crowds we've been getting for these games means a lot to our kids. It gets you going a bit, even if it's against what's perceived as meager competition."

That perception wasn't one Snyder or his team had. For good reason: Grambling was feisty and athletic, and trailed just 36-29 at halftime after shooting 54.2 percent from the field.

MU, meanwhile, shot just 34.3 percent in the first half, with Clarence Gilbert (zero of seven) especially struggling. Gilbert said he and Kareem Rush (five of 13) were bothered by Grambling's devious defensive strategy of ... not guarding them.

"It's like they dared us to make them," Gilbert said. "I'm telling Kareem out there, `Come on, we're wide open. We gotta hit these shots.' "