Pepperdine Starts Slowly, Beats San Diego : College basketball: Waves win 25th in a row in the West Coast Conference, 71-58.
Pepperdine fell into its same old pattern Saturday night: Struggling during the first half but cutting loose in the second.
Oh, yes--and winning.
Pepperdine won its 25th consecutive West Coast Conference game, defeating the University of San Diego, 71-58, before 2,986 at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.
The Waves improved to 16-6 overall, 9-0 in conference play. San Diego fell to 11-10, 3-5.
Pepperdine’s Doug Christie scored 25 points and Geoff Lear added 24, and they dominated the game as they had the night before. Each had scored 24 points Friday night in a victory over Santa Clara.
Said San Diego Coach Hank Egan: “Lear and Christie--they’re a tough combination and hard to handle. They’re a handful. You got any suggestions?”
But the Waves didn’t have it easy during the first half.
Sophomore forward Dana Jones, who suffered a sprained ankle Wednesday during practice, started the game but was not up to par. He didn’t score during the first half and finished with three points.
During the first half, Pepperdine outrebounded the Toreros, 17-9, and shot 48% from the field. But the Waves couldn’t seem to shake off San Diego.
There were two lead changes and four ties during the first half.
Lear led Pepperdine with 13 points during the first half, and Christie added 12.
Lear made nine of 10 free throws in the first 20 minutes.
A 19-foot jump shot by Steve Guild with five seconds left in the half gave Pepperdine a 34-26 lead at the break. That was the Waves’ biggest lead of the night until then.
Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury said he doesn’t expect perfection from his team.
“People really come at us,” Asbury said, “and we really have to anticipate that.
“You look at the (winning) streak and at what we’ve got going, and who isn’t going to come at us and give it 100%?
“It’s hard to go to the well this many times and expect powerful, efficient efforts every time. It just doesn’t work that way.”
But it works.