Waves Top USD to Keep Alive League Streak : Basketball: Pepperdine’s 79-67 victory over Toreros is its 26th consecutive West Coast Conference victory.

Take two felt better to the University of San Diego, but the ending stayed the same.

Pepperdine downed USD for the second time in six days Thursday, 79-67, in front of 2,385 in the Sports Center.

It was Pepperdine’s 26th consecutive West Coast Conference victory, and San Diego became the third WCC school this month to be swept by the Waves, who play everyone in the conference twice. Next up: Santa Clara. The conference record of 31 belongs to the USF teams of Bill Russell and K.C. Jones in the mid-1950s.

“Why aren’t you guys all in Wyoming covering the new (San Diego State) coach? No news here. All we do is win 26 league games in a row,” Waves Coach Tom Asbury said with a grin.

The victory wasn’t as assured as the Waves’ 71-58 victory over San Diego in Malibu Saturday, but Pepperdine came through in the final five minutes, breaking open a one-point game.

With the victory, Pepperdine improved to 10-0 in the WCC, 17-6 overall. USD fell to 3-6 and 11-11, falling to sixth in the conference.

The Toreros, without starting center Brooks Barnhard (flu) had their chances down the stretch. On Kelvin Woods’ three-point play, they trailed by only 69-64 with 2:17 left, and they had the ball.

But they missed two shots, gave up a basket by Geoff Lear on an in-bound pass, lost a rebound in a flurry that turned into another Pepperdine basket, and gave up two more points when Doug Christie rebounded a missed free throw and was fouled.

“I thought we gave a good effort tonight,” USD Coach Hank Egan said. “We had a chance to cut it to four, we don’t deliver, then I just thought we rushed. You’ve gotta move (Pepperdine) a little bit, you’ve got to move the ball around, otherwise with their athletic ability they’ll kill you off the boards.

“Those guys play the game well. We play the game well--lately we’ve had a lot of good 35-minute games. We’ve got to stretch one out to 40.”

San Diego tied the game three times in the second half, the last at 56 with 6:37 left. It was a one-point game with 5:10 to go when Asbury called a timeout, and the Waves responded with a 9-2 run. Asbury said he merely calmed the team down.

“The streak starts to wear on you,” Asbury said. “It affects how you play, how you think. I’m proud of the guys ‘cause we probably played down a tick and won.”

As usual, the triggermen for Pepperdine were seniors Christie and Lear, though San Diego defended them better than last weekend. Lear led both teams with 28 points and 10 rebounds, making 11 of 16 shots. Christie had 23 points. Rick Welch added 11.

San Diego was led by Woods with 18 points including 10-for-10 at the foul line. Gylan Dottin added 12. Pepperdine outshot the Toreros, 56% to 48%, and dominated the rebounding, 34-19.

When USD erased a six-point deficit and tied the game at 56, there was Lear scoring five in the 9-2 spurt. Then Christie had a quick six points in the final five minutes.

“We lost our poise a little bit,” Asbury said. “Lear and Christie step up at the end, as we expect them to do. The way we run our offense, we don’t say, ‘Doug and Geoff, take over.’ It just works that way. The players know who gets the job done.”

Egan said, “We were in this game a lot longer (than Saturday). I don’t think the score was indicative of the way the game was. It was a war right down to the end, I thought. The two big guys have really decided to rise up--Lear and Christie have taken over just about every game in conference.”

The Toreros stayed close throughout the first half, taking several brief leads and fighting back from deficits of five and six points to trail at halftime, 35-34.

San Diego’s biggest lead came early in the half, 16-13, on a Christie goaltend.

Despite a half that didn’t quite match their dominating performance last weekend in Malibu, Christie had 13 points and Lear 11 at the break. Woods had eight for the Toreros. Each team shot 50% in the half.

“That’s a very good basketball team, very balanced,” Egan said. “You can’t take ‘em out of what they want to do.”

Conference coaches have said that now for 26 games in a row.