Pepperdine Slows Rogers and Puts a Stop to Irvine

Pepperdine shut down UC Irvine’s Johnny Rogers and raced to an 81-72 win Saturdayi night before 3,010 fans at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.

When the 6-10 Rogers and 6-9 Tod Murphy are scoring, the Anteaters are tough to beat. Although Murphy scored a game-high 24 points, including three baskets on alley-oop dunks, Rogers was held to 10 points, just 4 in the second half, and hit only 4 of 15 shots.

Pepperdine’s Eric White scored 22 points to lead the Waves, who raised their record to 4-1. Irvine dropped to 1-2

Pepperdine Coach Jim Harrick said: “We tried to key in the zone on Rogers and Murphy. If you win, you try to make their guards beat you.”

Three Irvine guards contributed 24 points, Scott Brooks had 12 and Joe Buchanan 10.

But that wasn’t enough as Pepperdine’s Dwayne Polee scored 13, Anthony Frederick and Grant Gondrezick each had 12 and Levy Middlebrook added 10.

Harrick, whose team trailed, 23-22, with 9:27 left in the first half, credited a scoring spurt for giving Pepperdine a big lift.

The Waves got their fast break going and they outscored the Anteaters, 26-10, to lead at halftime, 48-33. Frederick had two dunks and eight points in the run, and White added six points.

UC Irvine Coach Billy Mulligan wasn’t happy with the way his team handled Pepperdine’s outburst. “I think we let our missed shots affect us,” he said.

“Our guys seem to think that when the ball isn’t going in the hole their game will fall apart.”

That’s about what happened, though the Anteaters pulled within five points at 66-61 after Murphy got a tip-in and Troy Carmon hit a short jumper off a fast break. But that’s as close as Irvine got.