Real Waves Show Up in Victory Over Gonzaga, 84-59

The imposters who posed as the Pepperdine basketball team and lost to Gonzaga a week ago weren’t on the court against the Bulldogs Saturday night.

This Pepperdine team shot a bit better (57.6%) than it usually does (50.4%), played tough defense and sprinted to an 84-59 victory over Gonzaga before a crowd of 3,104 at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.

The Waves made 34 of 59 shots.

The Bulldogs led only once, when Doug Spradley made the game’s first basket. After that, it was all Pepperdine.

The Waves, who improved to 13-6 overall and 5-1 in the West Coast Athletic Conference, led at halftime, 43-21, and by as many as 27 points in the second half.

Gonzaga, which shot just 38.6% (22 of 57), fell to 10-9 and 1-5.

Pepperdine Coach Jim Harrick said: “It was as good a game consistently as we’ve had all year.”

“Defensively, we took them out of what they wanted to do,” Harrick said. “And we kept it up the whole game. We were changing our defenses and keeping them confused.”

It would be difficult to single out which Pepperdine player had the best night, but Dexter Howard scored a game-high 20 points, 16 in the second half, while playing only 24 minutes.

Pepperdine’s Levy Middlebrooks scored 17 points and grabbed a game-high 10 rebounds, and Craig Davis had 13 points, 9 on three-point shots.

But Harrick reserved most of his praise for forward Tom Lewis and guard Donny Moore.

Lewis, who saw some action at the guard position in a victory over Portland on Friday night and also against Gonzaga, scored 15 points in 28 minutes. He also held Gonzaga’s high-scoring Danny Roe without a basket in the first half.

Harrick said that Lewis played “complete games” and that Moore, who had 13 assists in each of the weekend games, had done a fine job as the team’s only “true guard,” particularly in leading the fast break.

Spradley led the Bulldogs with 18 points. Roe, who had been averaging 15 points a game overall and 20 in conference play, finished with 5.