Men's Hoops Beats Portland, 80-65

Saturday, January 16

Malibu, Calif.

4:00 p.m. PT

Pepperdine University

5-6,1-1WCC

Portland

6-7,0-4WCC

Team	1	2	F
Portland	31	34	65
Pepperdine	40	40	80

Kessler Edwards

Photo by: Martin A. Folb

1/16/2021 6:43:00 PM | Men's Basketball

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By: by Athletic Communications

MALIBU, California – Kessler Edwards had game highs of 21 points, nine rebounds and four blocked shots to lead the Pepperdine men's basketball team to an 80-65 win over visiting Portland on Saturday night in West Coast Conference action.

The Waves (5-6, 1-1) scored 40 points in each half and led for 35+ minutes of the contest, while sending the Pilots (6-7, 0-4) to their fifth straight defeat.

BIG WAVES

Junior forward Kessler Edwards (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Etiwanda HS) hit the 20-point mark for the fifth time this season. Four blocks and three assists were both season highs and the nine rebounds tied his season high.
Grad transfer forward Kene Chukwuka (Stockholm, Sweden/Pitt) posted a career-high 14 points and also had seven rebounds and three assists.
Senior guard Colbey Ross (Aurora, Colo./Eaglecrest HS) recorded 10 assists, his second time this season and the 16th time in his career in double-figures. He also grabbed eight rebounds. He spent most of his night distributing the ball, as he attempted just five shots and scored four points.
Junior guard Darryl Polk Jr. (Long Beach, Calif./Long Beach Poly HS) had eight points, six rebounds and three assists.

KEY STATS

The Waves outshot the Pilots 49.3% to 41.1%.
Pepperdine was +13 in rebounding margin, its best showing against a Division I team this season.
The Waves had advantages of 28-2 in bench scoring, 22-12 in points off turnovers and 42-28 in points in the paint.
Portland had four players score in double-figures, led by Eddie Davis' 19 points.

PLAY BY PLAY

The first half mostly consisted of one scoring run after another for the first 17 minutes. The Waves jumped out to an 8-2 lead. Then Portland went on a 10-2 run to go in front 12-10. The Waves answered back with an 11-2 spurt to go back up 21-14. The Pilots responded with nine straight points to take their second and final lead of the night at 23-21. Pepperdine came back with 10 consecutive points to go ahead 31-23. Then the teams traded points the final three minutes, and the Waves went up 40-31 at the break.

Eight straight points early in the second half put Pepperdine up by 17 at 50-33 with 15 minutes to play. The Pilots had one more run in them, cutting the deficit to six at 52-46 with 10 minutes left. But junior guard Jade' Smith (Oakland, Calif./St. Joseph Notre Dame HS) scored the next five points and Edwards sank two jumpers in an 11-1 run. That put Pepperdine ahead 63-47 with seven minutes left, and the Waves enjoyed a double-digit lead the rest of the way, with their biggest lead of 19 points coming at 78-59.

NOTABLES

Pepperdine defeated Portland for the sixth straight time. The Waves have beaten the Pilots in Firestone Fieldhouse in 10 of the last 11 meetings.

UP NEXT

Pepperdine is home again on Thursday (Jan. 21) when the Waves host Pacific at 6 p.m. The game will be shown via WaveCasts on the WCC Network with Al Epstein on the call.