Pepperdine Extends WCC Streak to 29 : College basketball: The Waves beat Portland, 79-56, as Christie leads the way with 25 points.

Pepperdine extended its West Coast Conference winning streak to 29 games Friday night, beating Portland, 79-56, before 2,543 at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.

In other seasons, a victory over a last-place team by one that had already clinched the WCC regular-season championship might have been considered insignificant.

But not this season, said Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury.

“There’s no such thing as a meaningless game now,” Asbury said. “One, we’ve got the (conference) winning streak going. Two, there’s the conference tournament. And three, we need every win we can get for the NCAAs.”

Pepperdine (20-6, 13-0 in the WCC) is trying to break the record of 31 consecutive conference victories set by the University of San Francisco from 1954-57.

Although the Waves have won the regular-season conference championship, they must win the WCC tournament to earn an automatic berth in the NCAA playoffs.

If Pepperdine should lose in the WCC tournament, it would be to the team’s advantage to have won as many games as possible to impress NCAA tournament selectors and possibly enter postseason play as an at-large team.

The selectors might not have been impressed by the Waves Friday night. They struggled during the first half, falling behind, 17-15, with 11:18 remaining. But Pepperdine went on a 10-0 run and eventually opened a 43-31 halftime lead.

Portland (10-16, 3-10) pulled to 51-45 with 12:23 to play, but that was as close as it got.

Pepperdine’s Doug Christie led all scorers with 25 points and had seven assists and two steals. Geoff Lear added 17 points.

Peter McKelvey led Portland with 14 points, and Erik Payne added 11.

Asbury benched Lear for several minutes during the second half. Asbury said that the senior forward “played pretty well on offense, but I didn’t see fire on the defensive end--and he has been sensational on defense of late.”

The Waves will play host to Gonzaga tonight at 7:30.