Men's Hoops Drops Heartbreaker at Santa Clara

Saturday, February 20

Santa Clara, Calif.

3:00 p.m. PT

Pepperdine University

10-9,6-4WCC

Santa Clara

10-6,4-4WCC

Team	1	2	F
Pepperdine	32	50	82
Santa Clara	34	52	86

Colbey Ross

Photo by: Nick Koza/T.G.Sportstv1

2/20/2021 6:32:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score

By: by Athletic Communications

SANTA CLARA, California – A late game-tying basket was waved off, and the Pepperdine men's basketball team lost in a heartbreaker at Santa Clara, 86-82, on Saturday afternoon in West Coast Conference play.

Colbey Ross scored 26 points and appeared to have two more when he sank a floater with eight seconds left. Instead, the officials called it a charge, and the Broncos (10-6, 4-4) held on for the win and snapped the Waves' (10-9, 6-4) three-game winning streak.

BIG WAVES

Senior guard Colbey Ross (Aurora, Colo./Eaglecrest HS) had his ninth 20-point game of the season and tied his third-highest output of the season. He made nine of 14 shots and also had six assists.
Sophomore forward Jan Zidek (Prague, Czech Republic) scored a career-high 18 points and made three three-pointers. He also had nine rebounds, narrowly missing his second straight double-double.
Junior forward Kessler Edwards (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Etiwanda HS) had 11 points.
Sophomore guard Sedrick Altman (Rialto, Calif./Colony HS) had nine points and four assists.
Junior guard Darryl Polk Jr. (Long Beach, Calif./Long Beach Poly HS) had nine points off the bench and made all three of his shots.

KEY STATS

The Waves outshot the Broncos by a little bit (49.1% to 47.3%) and both teams made seven three-pointers.
The biggest difference came at the free throw line, where SCU went 27-for-36 (75.0%) and Pepperdine went 21-for-30 (70.0%).
Santa Clara got 26 points from Josip Vrankic and put four players into double-figures.

PLAY BY PLAY

Vrankic scored all 10 points in an early 10-0 run as the Broncos jumped out to a 12-2 lead. The Waves fought back, and at 17-8, Ross had seven points in a 13-0 run that saw Pepperdine go ahead 21-17 with 9 1/2 minutes left. The Waves took their largest lead of the game at five points at 26-21 and 26-23, the latter with six minutes left. But the Broncos would pull ahead 34-32 at halftime.

Zidek gave the Waves the lead on two occasions in the second half. His close-range basket made it 38-37 with 18:53 to play, and his three-pointer made it 58-57 with 11:55 to go. A 13-2 run over the next couple of minutes gave Santa Clara its biggest lead of 10 points at 70-60 with less than nine minutes remaining.

Led by Ross, the Waves chipped away at the lead. His three-point play made it a two-point game at 84-82 with 18 seconds left. The Broncos missed a pair of free throws to give the Waves the ball back. Ross drove toward the left side of the lane and put up a floater that went in, but a Bronco defender slid in front as Ross was taking off. Instead of a tie game with a possible chance to take the lead, an offensive foul was called, with Ross picking up his fifth.

The Waves were forced to foul, and Santa Clara made two free throws with seven seconds left to ice the win.

NOTABLES

Ross' six assists gives him 791 for his career. Once he reaches 800, he'll be one of just four players in Division I history to accumulate 2,000 points, 800 assists and 400 rebounds.
Vrankic has been a tough stop for the Waves, as he's averaged 22.0 points in the last four meetings.

UP NEXT

The Waves stay in Northern California for a make-up game at Saint Mary's on Monday (Feb. 22) at 3 p.m. The game will be televised locally on FOX Sports Prime Ticket and there will be an audio-only WaveCasts with Al Epstein.