LAS VEGAS, Nevada – The never-say-die Pepperdine men's basketball team rallied again from a second-half double-digit deficit and
Colbey Ross hit the go-ahead three-pointer with 30.5 seconds left, giving the Pepperdine men's basketball team a 68-65 victory over PCH Cup rival Loyola Marymount in the second round of the West Coast Conference Championships on Friday night.
During Thursday night's first round, the Waves trailed by 12 with 13 minutes remaining before beating Pacific 61-53. Tonight, the eighth-seeded Waves came back from 11 down with 16 1/2 minutes left to upset the fifth-seeded Lions, who were playing their first game of the tournament.
LMU led 65-62 with three minutes to play but the Waves kept the Lions scoreless the rest of the way. Ross scored the game's final five points.
BIG WAVES
- Sophomore guard Colbey Ross (Aurora, Colo./Eaglecrest HS) had 20 points and six assists. He made four of his five three-point attempts. It was his 16th time this season scoring 20 or more points.
- Sophomore guard Jade' Smith (Oakland, Calif./St. Joseph Notre Dame HS) scored 16 points and had five rebounds and three assists.
- Freshman forward Kessler Edwards (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Etiwanda HS) hit three of his four three-point attempts and scored 15 points to go with six rebounds.
- Freshman center Victor Ohia Obioha (Owerri, Nigeria/Hillcrest HS) continued his strong late-season play, scoring seven points and grabbing a career-best nine rebounds.
- Playing despite his foot injury, junior forward Kameron Edwards (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Etiwanda HS) gritted out 18 minutes of play and contributed four points and two rebounds.
KEY STATS
- Pepperdine ended up outshooting LMU 52.1% to 49.0%. After the Lions shot 57.7% in the first half, the Waves held them to 40.0% in the second.
- The Waves were 10-for-19 on three-pointers to the Lions' 4-for-12.
- Pepperdine outrebounded a bigger LMU squad 31-26.
- LMU got 19 points from Mattias Markusson, one of just two Lions to score in double-figures.
PLAY BY PLAY
Both teams got off to a tremendous start shooting, and the Waves made their first six three-point attempts, three of which came in the first two minutes. Three-pointers by Smith (16-11 at 14:30) and
Kessler Edwards (21-16 at 12:00) gave the Waves their largest leads of the half at five points.
The Lions took their first lead at 25-24 with 9:45 to play in the half. Up by one, a 6-0 Lions run made it 36-29 with 6:45 left, and they took their biggest lead of the half of nine points at both 40-31 and 42-33 before going into the break with a 42-35 advantage.
The LMU lead grew to 48-37 less than 3 1/2 minutes into the second half. But the Waves began chipping away, and got it down to five at 51-46 after an Ohia Obioha jumper and a
Kameron Edwards fast-break lay-up.
At 59-55,
Kessler Edwards hit a three-pointer, followed by a Smith driving lay-up, putting Pepperdine in front 60-59 with 6 1/2 minutes left and giving the Waves their first lead since midway through the first half.
The lead bounced back and forth a couple of times the next two minutes. Four consecutive LMU points put the Lions ahead 65-62 with a little more than three minutes left.
But the Lions wouldn't score again from there. Ohia Obioha made one free throw with under three minutes left. Ross tied the game at 65 with two free throws with 1:58 left. LMU missed a shot, and the Waves would miss on two attempts but each time got the offensive rebound. On the third try, Ross sank a three-pointer from the right wing to put Pepperdine in front with 30.5 seconds left.
The Waves defended LMU's last possession well, and James Batemon's three-point attempt just before the buzzer was off the mark.
NOTABLES
- After a scary fall during Thursday's game that sent him to the hospital, freshman guard Andre Ball (Chino Hills, Calif./Chino Hills HS) was thankfully in attendance and on the Waves' bench after being checked out and released this morning.
- Pepperdine won two of three games from PCH Cup rival LMU this season, and improved to 5-3 in the WCC Championships.
- This is the first time the Waves have won two games at a single WCC Tournament since 2002 (the last time they played in the championship).
QUOTABLE
Pepperdine Coach
Lorenzo Romar said: "We're very pleased, obviously. We were down at halftime and it seemed like we couldn't defend them inside. We adjusted at halftime and our guys did a great job making the adjustment. Loyola is a team that's well-coached, well-disciplined, a team where you have to make big plays. Down the stretch, a number of our guys made big plays whether it was big shots, big rebounds, deflections, stops. When you win with a huge team effort, everybody feels so much better about themselves. That's what happened tonight."
UP NEXT
Pepperdine next meets San Francisco in Saturday night's quarterfinals at 7 p.m. It will be televised by ESPN2, while there will be an audio-only WaveCasts with Al Epstein on the call at PepperdineWaves.com.
