UPCOMING — The Pepperdine women’s basketball team (5-3) travels to Santa Barbara to face UC Santa Barbara.
GAME #9 — Monday (Dec. 17) at the Thunderdome in Santa Barbara, Calif., Pepperdine meets UCSB (3-5) at 7 p.m.
ON THE WEB — Pepperdine fans can catch all home women’s basketball games on the internet at www.pepperdinesports.com. Live video, audio and statistics will be provided. Go to the Pepperdine Athletics website and look for the WaveCasts button.
SANTA BARBARA — The Waves are 12-12 all-time against the Gauchos. This will be the 25th time the two teams have met. In 2006, Pepperdine’s last win against Santa Barbara was on Dec. 14, 1993 with a 75-62 score, in Malibu.
Senior guard Jessica Wilson was selected to the pre-season All-Big West Team this year. She has scored a total of 91-points in the eight games the Gauchos have played. Wilson leads the team averaging 6.3 rebounds and is second with 2.5 assist per game. Wilson has a shooting average of 48.6% (34-70) for the season.
PEPPERDINE VS. USC RECAP — The Pepperdine women’s basketball team suffered their first loss to a Pac-10 team this season when University of Southern California narrowly defeated the Waves 55-52, Saturday afternoon at the Galen Center in Los Angeles, Calif.
The Waves (5-3) led by five points at the half (32-27) after a slow start that saw Pepperdine down by eight points early in the half. Shannon Johnson’s (Highland Village, Texas / Marcus HS) back-to-back three-pointers gave the team the boost they needed to continue a scoring run. Johnson ended the game with a season-high nine points, shooting 3-4 on three-pointers.
DAPHANIE KENNEDY HITS 1,074 AND COUNTING — Senior guard Daphanie Kennedy broke the 1,000 point mark for her career (Nov. 28,) against UCLA.. She becomes the 16th player in Pepperdine history to surpass the 1,000-point level. Kennedy scored a total of 915 points in her first three seasons.
ROSTER — All five starters and 10 letterwinners return from last year’s team, which went 14-17 overall and fifth in the WCC with a 6-8 record. The Waves added three new players (two true freshmen and one transfer) this year. The roster breakdown is as follows: four seniors, four juniors, three sophomores and two freshmen.
TOP SIX — The WCC’s coaches released a preseason "top six" of the best players in the conference, and senior guard Daphanie Kennedy and sophomore forward/center Teena Wickett earned two of the six slots. Kennedy earned All-WCC first team honors as a sophomore and honorable mention as a junior. Wickett was an All-WCC first teamer as a freshman.
WCC PRESEASON POLL — Pepperdine was picked to finish third in the West Coast Conference in a preseason vote of the league’s coaches. The predicted order is as follows: San Diego, Gonzaga, Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount, Saint Mary’s, San Francisco, Santa Clara and Portland.
JULIE ROUSSEAU — The fifth head coach in Pepperdine women’s basketball history, Julie Rousseau is now in her fourth season with the Waves. She is a former head coach of the WNBA’s Los Angeles Sparks and was an assistant coach at Stanford before joining the Waves. In just her second season, she led Pepperdine to a WCC Tournament title and a spot in the 2006 NCAA Tournament.
SERVICE — The women’s basketball team is one of the most involved teams at Pepperdine in community service. On Nov. 23, they hosted their second annual Time Out 4 HIV/AIDS Tournament to promote awareness and raise money to fight the disease. The tournament was also used as an avenue to raise funds for the rebuilding of the Malibu First Presbyterian Church. Unfortunately, the Malibu canyon fires forced the cancellation of the second day of the tournament. In October, they participated in a two-mile walk to support The Leukemia-Lymphoma Society, and on Thanksgiving, the team will spend the day feeding the homeless in downtown Los Angeles. All of this involvement, Rousseau believes, is the key to success in life and on the court – which is giving to others and making the world a better place.
PEPPERDINE HISTORY — Pepperdine has posted a winning record in 10 of the last 14 years and has registered six 20-win seasons over the past 10 years. The Waves captured the program’s first-ever West Coast Conference Tournament title in 2002 and followed that up with victories in 2003 and 2006. Pepperdine has also won at least a share of the regular-season championship in four of the last nine seasons. Pepperdine has made the postseason in seven of the last nine years, including the NCAA Tournament four times. The Waves also played in the Women’s National Invitation Tournament three times in recent years.
