Waves Earn Commanding Win Over George Washington

Friday, December 23

Honolulu, Hawai'i

7:00 p.m. PT

Pepperdine University

7-6,0-0WCC

George Washington

6-6,0-0Atlantic 10

Team	1	2	F
George Washington	31	39	70
Pepperdine	34	47	81

Photo by: Morgan Davenport

12/23/2022 10:56:00 PM | Men's Basketball

Box Score Box Score Updated Bracket

By: by Athletic Communications

HONOLULU, Hawai'i – The Pepperdine men's basketball team defeated George Washington 81-70 on the second night of the Hawaiian Airlines Diamond Head Classic on Friday evening with the help of four double-figure Waves and a spark plug freshman.

Freshmen Jalen Pitre and Jevon Porter had career highs in scoring (11) and rebounds (14) respectively for the Waves (7-6).

BIG WAVES

Sophomore Maxwell Lewis (Las Vegas, Nev./AZ Compass Prep) poured in 22 points and four rebounds to go with five assists on the night.
Freshman Jevon Porter (Columbia, Missouri/Father Tolton Catholic HS) accrued his third double-double this season with 18 points to go with his career high 14 rebounds and two blocks.
Freshman Jalen Pitre (Long Beach, Calif./Long Beach Poly HS/Woodstock Academy) added on six boards to pair with the career-high 11 points.

PLAY-BY-PLAY
Pepperdine tipped-off the second night of the Diamond Head Classic with better tempo, as Porter flushed a cleanup putback to put the Waves on the board. The Colonials ran away with a 10-0 scoring slide midway through the first period, but a couple of Pepperdine fast breaks cut GWU's lead with under four minutes left. Mitchell got hot in the last two minutes, draining a fastbreak three and then taking the ball off the dribble for a layup before Mallette followed suit with two short-range jumpers to put the score at 34-31 Waves heading into the locker room.
In the second half, the Colonials took the lead for about two minutes, but spark plug Pitre checked into the game and the Waves never lost the lead again. Pepperdine went on a 9-0 run shortly after that saw Lewis and Porter go off from three-point range. Pitre had a run of his own, scoring eight of the Waves' 12 points in a five-minute stretch starting with seven minutes left in the game. Pepperdine ended the game with a Pitre dunk in the final minute, putting the final score at 81-70 in favor of the Waves.

KEY STATS

The Waves almost doubled GWU's rebounding numbers, going for 40 as the Colonials had only 26.
Pepperdine dished out 15 assists in comparison to George Washington's seven.
The Waves out-shot GWU 54% to 44%.

UP NEXT
The Waves will have Christmas Eve off to prepare for Rick Pitino's Iona squad in a fifth place game set to tip-off at 12:30 p.m. PT on ESPNU. Veteran play-by-play man Al Epstein will also have the call on WaveCasts.