PEPPERDINE AT PORTLAND
Date: Thursday, February 20, 2020
Site: Chiles Center (Portland, Oregon)
Time: 6 p.m.
TV: Spectrum SportsNet
Audio: WaveCasts
Series: Pepperdine leads 63-38
Last Meeting: Waves 80, Pilots 69 (1/25/2020 in Malibu)

PEPPERDINE WAVES
2019-20 Record: 14-13
    WCC Record: 7-6
    Away Record: 5-6
Head Coach: Lorenzo Romar
Website: www.PepperdineWaves.com
Twitter: @PeppBasketball

PORTLAND PILOTS
2019-20 Record: 9-18
    WCC Record: 1-11
    Home Record: 7-7
Head Coach: Terry Porter
Website: www.PortlandPilots.com
Twitter: @PilotHoops

WAVEPOINTS
• The penultimate week of the regular season has the Pepperdine men's basketball team playing a pair of road games. First up is at Portland on Thursday night.
• The Waves start the week in fifth place in the WCC. They're a game out of fourth (though fourth-place Pacific has the tiebreaker). They're 1 1/2 games ahead of seventh (the top six avoid the first night of the WCC Tournament).
• After winning a combined total of three true road games the past three seasons, the Waves have won five of them in 2019-20.
• Colbey Ross, who is on the Lou Henson Award midseason watch list, is averaging a WCC-best 7.3 assists per game (on pace to break his own school record). Nationally, he's first in total assists (197) and fifth in assists per game. Ross has more career assists than any junior in the country with 615 (second place is 45 assists back) and he's 10th among all active Division I players. He's 13 assists away from entering the WCC's top 10. He'll soon own two of what will be four 200-assist seasons in Pepperdine history.
• Ross set Pepperdine's career record for assists on December 14 and is now taking aim at the career scoring record. He's tied for fifth place, 28 points shy of fourth place and 142 points away from the record. Ross has scored at least 21 points in four straight games.
• The trio of Ross (second in the WCC at 19.9 ppg), Kameron Edwards (fourth at 17.4) and Kessler Edwards (13th at 13.5) has scored 64.2% of the Waves' points this season. Throw in Skylar Chavez (10.5), and that quartet has scored 77.2% of the Waves' points.
• Pepperdine ranks second nationally in free throw percentage at 79.9%. Ross leads the WCC at 87.1% and has made 148 free throws, fifth-most nationally.
• Kessler Edwards leads the WCC in blocked shots (1.7). He has 46 blocks and needs 48 to break into the Waves' single-season top 10.
• Ross has played 1,002 minutes this season, third-most nationally.
• The Waves have their final regular-season road game at USF on Saturday afternoon.

WAVECASTS — Thursday's game can be listened to online via WaveCasts at PepperdineWaves.com. Veteran play-by-play man Al Epstein, a 2015 Pepperdine Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, will be behind the microphone (now in his 35th season, this will be his 1,065th consecutive broadcast for the Waves).

WATCH — Thursday's game can be seen locally on Spectrum SportsNet and elsewhere on ROOT Sports Northwest, NBC Sports California and AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain. Fans not in one of those TV markets can watch on Stadium's Facebook page. Ann Schatz and Ben Braun are the announcers.

PEPPERDINE — Pepperdine boasts a one-of-a-kind athletic department with unprecedented success for a school of its size. The Waves have won NCAA Division I championships in five different men's sports — one of just 18 schools to have accomplished this feat — and nine overall. Of this elite group, Pepperdine has the smallest undergraduate enrollment, is the only school without football and is the only university that has not been affiliated with a "major" conference. The Waves have won a total of 25 team or individual national championships in their history. Pepperdine has also earned the Division I-AAA All-Sports Trophy, an award based on postseason success that's given to the top non-football school, three times (most recently in 2011-12). The Waves have produced 205 conference championships, 318 All-Americans and 53 Olympians. Located in scenic Malibu, California, the university overlooks the Pacific Ocean and its campus and athletic facilities are regularly voted among the nation's most beautiful. Pepperdine, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, ranks #50 overall on U.S. News and World Report's list of America's best colleges.