Pepperdine Reaches the End of the Road; Santa Clara Wins WCAC Title

That horse-drawn carriage to transport Pepperdine to the NCAA tournament? Cancel it.

Santa Clara defeated the Cinderella Waves, 77-65, Saturday night in the championship game of the West Coast Athletic Conference before 4,485 fans at the University of San Francisco’s Memorial Gymnasium.

And the Broncos (18-12) will be taking that carriage ride, having earned the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA playoffs.

Santa Clara started out as if it were going to blow out Pepperdine. The Broncos got out to a 9-0 lead, making their first three shots while Pepperdine missed its first five, including three misses by scoring leader Eric White. By halftime, Santa Clara had increased its lead to 37-23.

In the first half, Santa Clara used a pressure defense to force poor shots and turnovers by Pepperdine (12-18). In the second half, the Waves applied some pressure, and White and his teammates began taking good shots and making them.

A three-pointer by Craig Davis 6:36 into the second half pulled Pepperdine to within eight points, at 49-41. With 10:06 left, White grabbed an offensive rebound and hit a basket, cutting Santa Clara’s lead to one point at 54-53.

But with 9:02 remaining and the Waves in possession of the ball, Ed Allen lost a pass out of bounds near half-court. Then Santa Clara’s Jens Gordon, the conference tournament’s most valuable player, hit a jumper from the foul line to make it 56-53.

In the next 4:42, Gordon, who finished with 17 points, as did teammate Dan Weiss, scored nine more points to put the game away.

Gordon almost was not around to pull it out for his team. 16:29 into the second half, he caught an unintentionally thrown elbow from a Pepperdine player and crumpled to the floor.

Gordon lay on the floor for what seemed like minutes during the injury timeout. But he got up and got back in the game.

After the game, he said he had been hit on the bridge of the nose, and “blacked out for a second.”

It was also close to blackout time for Pepperdine, which had reached the final by defeating the University of San Diego, 64-63, Friday night and ousting the regular-season conference champion from the tournament.

Pepperdine Coach Jim Harrick said his team’s “tank wasn’t all the way full” against the Broncos, running out of gas after upsetting San Diego (24-5) the previous night.

Harrick: “We started out a little flat, and they started out sharp.”

White, who scored a game-high 21 points, was named to the all-tournament team along with teammate Levy Middlebrooks, who played tough defense against San Diego 7-footer Scott Thompson, another all-tourney selection.

Other all-tournament selections were Weiss, who had a game-high 11 rebounds against the Waves, and teammate Chris Lane.