Final Stats | Photo Gallery

Box Score

MALIBU, California " Matthew Atewe had the biggest game of his career, but the Pepperdine men's basketball team couldn't survive a late scoring drought or San Diego's three-point barrage in a 68-66 West Coast Conference loss on Thursday night.

Fifteen of the Toreros' 19 field goals were three-pointers, and San Diego (16-9, 7-6) overcame a 10-point deficit in the final nine minutes to beat the Waves (4-21, 1-12).

BIG WAVES

• Senior center Matthew Atewe (Toronto, Ontario, Canada/Washington) set career highs with 19 points and 14 rebounds, and tied another high with five blocked shots. He made all seven of his field goal attempts.
• Freshman guard Colbey Ross (Aurora, Colo./Eaglecrest HS) scored a team-high 20 points, his seventh time scoring 20 or more points this season, best on the Waves. He also had five assists, giving him 138 on the season, tying him with Jeremy Major for Pepperdine's freshman record.
• Sophomore forward Kameron Edwards (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Etiwanda HS) finished with nine points and seven rebounds.
• Senior guard Amadi Udenyi (Oakland, Calif./De La Salle HS) had three assists and became the fourth player in Pepperdine history to record 400 assists in a career.

KEY STATS

• Pepperdine narrowly outshot San Diego, 38.5% to 38.0%.
• But from distance, the Toreros were 15-for-34 (44.1%) to the Waves' 4-for-15 (26.7%).
• The Waves made up some of that difference by going 22-for-26 (84.6%) from the foul line, compared to 15-for-27 (55.6%) by San Diego.
• Pepperdine enjoyed overall advantages of 41-30 on the boards and 28-6 in points in the paint.
• San Diego put five players into double-figures, led by Jose Martinez's 16 points.

PLAY BY PLAY

The first half was one of Pepperdine's best defensive showings of the season as the Waves took a 27-25 lead. The 25 points were the second-fewest given up in a half this season. There were seven lead changes in the half and neither side went up by more than five points.

The Waves kept their lead for the first 17 minutes of the second half, and the lead grew to 10 points at 56-46 with 8:51 to go after Ross made three free throws.

Nothing went right from there, however, as the Waves went scoreless for the next five minutes and the Toreros went on an 18-2 run over the next eight minutes. All four USD field goals during the run were three-pointers, including one that gave them their first second-half lead at 59-58 with 2:33 to play.

The run finally ended with two Ross free throws that made it 64-60 with 24 seconds left. The Waves had some success fouling for profit, including with 2.2 seconds left when a missed free throw gave Pepperdine the ball back, but the Waves couldn't advance the ball or get a shot off.

HIGHLIGHTS

NOTABLES

• Three players were out for this game, with Harrison Meads (concussion) becoming the 11th scholarship player to miss a game this season due to injury or illness. Trae Berhow (ankle) and Nolan Taylor (shoulder) were also out. The Waves' total number of player-games missed due to injury or illness is up to 62 this season. This was the 18th time in 25 games that the Waves have had multiple key rotation players out.

UP NEXT

Pepperdine visits rival Loyola Marymount on Saturday (Feb. 10) at 3 p.m. in a PCH Cup game. It will be shown on TheW.tv and there will be an audio-only WaveCasts with Al Epstein on the call at PepperdineWaves.com.