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Box Score

MALIBU, California " Eric Cooper Jr. scored a season-high 19 points but the Pepperdine men's basketball team couldn't handle #19 Gonzaga's inside play as the Waves fell 89-59 in West Coast Conference play on Thursday evening.

The Waves (3-12, 0-3 WCC) were outscored 48-14 in the paint by the Bulldogs (13-3, 3-0 WCC).

BIG WAVES

• Junior guard Eric Cooper Jr. (Ontario, Calif./St. Anthony HS/Nevada) scored 12 of his 19 points in the second half. It was his sixth game of the season and his previous best was 14 points. He also tied a career high with four assists. He made three three-pointers.
• Freshman guard Colbey Ross (Aurora, Colo./Eaglecrest HS) had 12 points, four assists and four rebounds.

KEY STATS

• The Bulldogs outshot the Waves 53.8% to 44.8%.
• Gonzaga also had advantages on three-pointers made (nine to six), rebounding (39-29), points off turnovers (23-6), second-chance points (15-2) and bench points (36-13).
• The Waves only got to the free throw line twice (and went 1-for-4), while Gonzaga was 10-for-16.
• Gonzaga put four players in double-figures, led by Killian Tillie's 22 points on 9-for-10 shooting.

PLAY BY PLAY

The Waves looked good in the early going, taking a 7-3 lead a little more than four minutes in. Their last lead came at 9-7 after a Trae Berhow jumper. But the Waves then went scoreless for nearly seven minutes, and the Bulldogs scored the next 15 points with Tillie hitting two three-pointers and Rui Hachimura getting the next nine. That made the score 22-9 with less than eight minutes left in the first half. Gonzaga went into the break with a 41-23 lead.

The Waves' offense improved a bit in the second half as they scored 36 points and shot 53.6% after the break, but Gonzaga never let up and maintained a big lead throughout the half.

NOTABLES

• Kameron Edwards (concussion), the Waves' leading scorer and rebounder, missed his sixth straight game.
• The Waves' total number of player-games missed due to injury is up to 36 this season. Pepperdine hasn't had its expected starting lineup available for a single game this season.

HIGHLIGHTS

UP NEXT

Pepperdine is home again on Saturday (Jan. 6) at 1 p.m. against San Francisco for the WCC Game of the Week. It will be shown locally on Spectrum SportsNet and there will be an audio-only WaveCasts with Al Epstein.