MALIBU, California – Colbey Ross hit a few more big milestones on his Senior Night, but the Pepperdine men's basketball team suffered a rare home loss to PCH Cup rival Loyola Marymount, 81-74, on Thursday evening in West Coast Conference play.
 
The Waves (10-11, 6-6) had a better night shooting than the Lions (12-7, 7-4), but LMU utilized turnovers and offensive rebounds to create extra chances, and made the most of them.
 
BIG WAVES

• Senior guard Colbey Ross (Aurora, Colo./Eaglecrest HS) had game highs of 25 points and eight assists. Ross scored 20 or more for the 10th time this season and the 54th time in his career. He made four three-pointers and played all 40 minutes.
• Junior forward Kessler Edwards (Rancho Cucamonga, Calif./Etiwanda HS) had 14 points, six rebounds and two blocks. Edwards went a perfect 10-for-10 from the free throw line.
• Junior center Victor Ohia Obioha (Owerri, Nigeria/Hillcrest HS) tied a career high with 11 points and grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, one shy of his career best.
• Sophomore guard Sedrick Altman (Rialto, Calif./Colony HS) scored 10 points.

NOTABLES 

• Ross moved past USF's Bill Cartwright and into seventh place on the WCC's all-time scoring list with 2,131 points.
• Ross collected his 800th career assist tonight. He's now one of just three players in NCAA Division I history to accumulate at least 2,100 points, 800 assists and 400 rebounds.
• Ross broke the Pepperdine school record for career minutes played, surpassing Dana Jones' total of 4,178 minutes set in 1994. Ross is now at 4,187 minutes.
• The Lions won in Firestone Fieldhouse for just the second time in their last 23 visits.
• Pepperdine honored Ross, graduate transfer Kene Chukwuka and former players-turned-graduate managers Keith Smith and Michael Wexler in a pregame Senior Night ceremony.

 KEY STATS

• Pepperdine outshot LMU, 50.0% to 48.2%. Three-pointers (seven by Pepperdine to six by LMU) and free throws made (23 by Pepperdine, 21 by LMU) also favored the Waves.
• But Pepperdine took only 44 shot attempts (making 22) to LMU's 56 (making 27).
• The Waves committed 15 turnovers to LMU's nine and the Lions had an 18-12 edge in points off turnovers.
• LMU grabbed 14 offensive rebounds to Pepperdine's eight and the Lions had a 19-14 advantage in second-chance points.
• The Lions were effective down low, outscoring Pepperdine 38-18 with points in the paint.
• Loyola Marymount put five players into double-figures scoring, led by Keli Leaupepe's 17 points.

PLAY BY PLAY
 
Pepperdine never led in the game. LMU went up by eight points in the first half at 27-19 with six minutes left. Ross hit a three, and Altman and junior guard Jade' Smith (Oakland, Calif./St. Joseph Notre Dame HS) made lay-ups to get the Waves back to within one point at 27-26. Sophomore forward Jan Zidek (Prague, Czech Republic) hit a three-pointer for the only tie of the contest at 31. LMU scored the next five points, and eventually went into halftime up five at 40-35.
 
An 8-0 run early in the second half put the Lions ahead by 13 at 50-37. The Waves got it back to single-digits at 58-49 with 9 1/2 minutes left, but LMU later took its biggest lead of the game at 15 points at 72-57 with less than five minutes to go. A 9-0 Pepperdine run made things interesting, as the Lion lead was cut to six at 72-66 with two minutes to play. But the Waves get no closer than five in the final seconds.
 
UP NEXT
 
The regular-season finale is Saturday (Feb. 27) at San Diego at 1 p.m. The game will be streamed online by Stadium and there will be an audio-only WaveCasts with Al Epstein at PepperdineWaves.com.