The saying goes, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.”

Robert Corn and his team hope to disprove that mantra.

It seemed that the Missouri Southern men’s basketball team had picked up its stride after three losses had dropped it out of the top-10 in national rankings.

“Well, there’s no doubt the road is extremely tough,” Corn said.

“When you look at your schedule, if you’ve got several games on the road, that’s going to be a very important stretch for you and you hope you can weather the storm a little bit. We were fortunate enough, I think we’ve done that. Obviously we got beat at Pitt State, we got beat at Washburn, but we came back and we won at Fort Hays, and even though it’s a non-conference game, the win at Northeastern was still an important win for us.”

That momentum was stopped, at least for the moment, Wednesday when the Central Missouri Mules snapped the Lions’ 15-game home winning streak.

The victory turned what was a three-way tie for the conference lead (between Southern, Central and Northwest Missouri) into a two-way one, dropping the Lions to third place; the Mules and Bearcats now share the conference lead.

Wednesday, the Lions were led by senior center Keane Thomann’s 24 points, and three other Lions scored in double figures, but no other in green and gold contributed more than five points.

For Central, every player who saw time recorded points, and the Mules were led by 15 points apiece from Dominique Long and Lance Beckwith.

“It’s important now to stay locked in and play well at home,” Corn said.

“And yet we’ve still got some challenges to go out on the road … We’re certainly looking forward to those challenges.”

Over the winter break, Southern beat Southwest Baptist University 92-77, helped by 23 points from Thomann and 20 from sophomore guard Marquis Addison.

The Lions’ hot shooting propelled them past the Bearcats, as they shot at a 56 percent clip on the night.

On Dec. 30, Southern was beaten on the road at Pittsburg State, victims of a 56 percent shooting clip themselves.

Eric Ray dominated the Lions with 28 points in the game.

Next, Southern hosted the Hornets of Emporia State University.  Thomann abused ESU with a 27-point performance, also grabbing 10 rebounds on the way to an 82-73 win.

The Lions’ offense went cold in a Jan. 7 loss at Washburn, shooting only 37 percent, 22 in the second half, and the Ichabods sent them home with their third loss of the season, 67-49.

Southern followed that loss with wins by scores of 82-71, 70-67, and 84-76 over Fort Hays, Northeastern and Northwest, respectively.