Pepperdine Clinches WCC Title : College basketball: Waves defeat Loyola Marymount, 103-89, for 28th consecutive conference victory and second straight crown.
Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury was quick with an answer this week when asked about his team’s dominance in the West Coast Conference.
“The thing that separates us from the rest of the league is that we’ve been fairly consistent and we’ve been a good road team,” Asbury said.
The Waves drove that point home in convincing fashion Saturday night by clinching their second consecutive WCC title with a 103-89 victory over Loyola Marymount before 2,698 at Gersten Pavilion.
In winning its 28th consecutive WCC game, Pepperdine shot 63% and outrebounded Loyola, 44-28, to improve to 19-6 overall, 12-0 in conference play, and secure the No. 1 seeding for the WCC tournament March 7-9 at the University of Portland.
“It’s great to win (the championship) anywhere, but it’s really great to win it here,” said Asbury, whose team has won 17 consecutive WCC road games dating to February of 1990.
“Collectively, this is a great group of guys,” Asbury said. “They have great chemistry. They bear down when it becomes important, and that’s the trademark of a good team.”
Senior forward Geoff Lear helped Pepperdine control the inside with 31 points on nine-of-13 shooting and nine rebounds. Meanwhile, guards Damin Lopez and Rick Welch and forward Steve Guild combined to make eight of 11 three-point shots to give the Waves an impressive outside game.
“They played like they wanted to win the league championship, and they did,” Loyola Coach Jay Hillock said. “Lear was phenomenal.”
Loyola (13-12, 6-6) had hoped that the addition of senior guard Terrell Lowery, who missed last month’s 94-84 loss at Pepperdine because of a disciplinary suspension, would give the Lions a boost. But even with Lowery’s 31 points, Loyola never got closer than eight points in the second half, partly because of to its 43% shooting.
Lowery passed former University of San Francisco center Bill Cartwright as the second-leading scorer in WCC history with 2,126 points. The late Hank Gathers of Loyola is the leader with 2,490 points.
Because of foul trouble to Lear and senior guard Doug Christie (20 points), Pepperdine went to a zone defense in the second half, and both coaches said it effectively slowed Loyola’s run-and-gun attack.
“The zone stymied us,” said Hillock, whose team fell two games behind Santa Clara (12-13, 8-4) for third place in the WCC with two games remaining.
A three-point shot by Lowery with 5:29 left pulled Loyola within 84-76, but two free throws by Lear, one by Christie and a three-point shot by Welch gave Pepperdine a 90-76 lead with 3:48 left.
Pepperdine outscored Loyola, 14-4, in the final 4:20 of the first half to take a 47-36 lead. Guild made three three-point shots during the Waves’ surge for his only points of the game.
Loyola closed to 33-32 with just under five minutes left in the first half on a three-point play by freshman forward Wyking Jones and a layup by Rahim Harris.