Waves Can’t Keep Up With Kansas, 98-73

For a team that was supposed to cut through Pepperdine like wintry winds through wheat fields, second-ranked Kansas had its troubles Saturday night. For a while anyway.

But in the last eight minutes, the Jayhawks cut the Waves down to size.

Kansas, with a 17-0 run that turned a close game into a rout, defeated Pepperdine, 98-73, before a capacity crowd of 15,800 at Allen Fieldhouse.

“Basically, we slobbed through tonight,” Kansas Coach Roy Williams said.

The victory gave Kansas a 10-0 record, the first time since the Wilt Chamberlain-led team of 1957-58 that the Jayhawks have won their first 10 games.

The Waves (2-3) kept the Jayhawks off balance until falling apart near the end.

Kansas never led by more than nine points in the first half. Pepperdine outrebounded the Jayhawks, 20-13, before halftime and stayed close with three-point shots. The Waves trailed, 46-39, at halftime.

But Kansas outrebounded the Waves, 26-13, in the second half and began pulling away late in the game.

With 7:42 remaining, Pepperdine’s Doug Christie made a three-point play when he broke away for a dunk, was fouled and converted a free throw, to cut Kansas’ lead to 74-69.

But Christie’s dunk was the last field goal Pepperdine would score.

Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury said his team began to self-destruct after that.

“We started playing selfishly, began taking poor shots and didn’t get a defensive rebound in the last five or six minutes,” Asbury said.

“We were good for 35 minutes, but it’s not a high school game. We have to be good for 40 minutes.

“In the end, we didn’t do the basic fundamentals. We self-destructed by individually trying to win the game.”

Mark Randall, held to six points in the first half, led Kansas with 21 points.

Kevin Pritchard scored 19 points, giving him 1,322 for his career and putting in 10th place on the Jayhawk career-scoring list. Pritchard passed Walt Wesley (1964-66), who scored 1,315, and is closing in on Chamberlain (1956-58), who is ninth at 1,433.

“We really started to get after it in the second half,” Pritchard said. “Our big guys really did a great job with the ball. Our guards and small forwards started to run, and their big guys couldn’t keep up. That left several shots open for Randall and other people.”

Randall said that a “a lot of stuff started to open up in the second half. I credit my teammates for that.”

“We have real confidence in our outside shooting,” he said. “If the guys hit outside, then the inside opens up. If we are hitting inside, then that opens up the perimeter. It works both ways.”

Asbury complimented Pritchard and Randall on their play. “I think Pritchard is a super player. I hope there will be a place in the NBA for a guy who plays with the heart that he does. You’d really like for a guy like Kevin to get a chance to play after college. Randall too.”

Asbury said that Tom Lewis, who played only 26 minutes because of a dislocated little finger on his right hand, was affected somewhat by the injury. But he quickly added that Lewis’ relative ineffectiveness didn’t cost Pepperdine the game.,

Christie led the Waves with 13 points, and Lewis, Shann Ferch and Geoff Lear each scored 10.

“We played 32 good minutes,” Christie said. “But like the coach said, you’ve got to play 40.

“At the end, everyone tried to do their own thing. I thought we were going to (win). Every time we made a mistake, they capitalized on it. We just fell apart.”

Center Mark Georgeson, who played his first game for the Waves since transferring from Arizona more than a year ago, was impressed with Kansas. “It shows a lot about a team when they’re up 18 to 20 and still scrapping for balls and running their offense,” he said.