CHICAGO — St. Louis University not only hung with a far more experienced Iowa State for the first 20 minutes on Friday, but outplayed them in many ways and early in the second half held on to a one-point lead.

But when SLU's offense deserted it, it took the defense along with it. The Billikens went almost 6½ minutes without a point, and while that was going on, Iowa State was outscoring SLU 13-0 on some fairly easy baskets.

By the time SLU snapped out of its funk, the hole was too deep to climb from and the Billikens lost their first game of the season, 65-54, in the semifinals of the Chicago Invitational Challenge at the UIC Pavilion. SLU will face No. 23 Notre Dame, a 72-58 loser to Northwestern, in the third-place game today at 4:30 p.m.

"We missed some good shots and our guys are emotionally immature," SLU coach Rick Majerus said. "We just didn't have the toughness to survive missing good shots."

"Some shots fall and some shots don't and when that happens, what we've got to do is turn up the defensive intensity," center Willie Reed said. "We had a little mental strike there on their run and gave them open shots, but as we keep progressing, we'll get better at defensive transition."

The pivot point was SLU's outside shooting. With Iowa State (6-0) getting out aggressively on them, SLU (4-1) missed its first 13 3-point tries and didn't make one until Kwamain Mitchell hit one with 1:12 to play.

SLU was one for 16 from beyond the arc, a 6.3 percentage, though Majerus was pretty satisfied with the shots the Billikens took. SLU got 42 of its 54 points in the lane. Of the other 12, there were seven free throws (in 12 tries, another concern), Mitchell's 3 and a 15-footer by Christian Salecich.

"They denied us pretty good," guard Kyle Cassity said. "It was even tougher to get catches on the wings. We got some open looks, we just didn't make them."

While the guards all had off nights, SLU's big men had a big game. Brian Conklin matched a career high with 18 points and Reed had 14 points, along with a career-high 13 rebounds and did a good job defensively on ISU star forward Craig Brackins, who scored 16 points but needed 18 shots to do it.

SLU held Iowa State to 32.3 percent shooting in the first half and weathered ISU's pressure even without Mitchell on the court after he got two quick fouls and played just 78 seconds in the half.

SLU was down three at the half and scored on its first two possessions of the second half to retake the lead at 31-30.

From there, not much worked. Mitchell, not quite into his rhythm, missed back-to-back 3-pointers. Cassity couldn't get a layup to go down, Justin Jordan missed a 15-footer and then a 3-point try. Reed drove to the basket but couldn't score and Mitchell traveled.

ISU, meanwhile, scored on six of nine possessions. It wasn't until Femi John grabbed a long rebound and drove to the basket with 12:18 to go that SLU scored. SLU got as close as eight points after that, but never had a chance to get closer.