MALIBU, California – A shorthanded Pepperdine men's basketball team got 25 points from Houston Mallette and battled top-ranked Gonzaga for 40 minutes on Wednesday night, but the Bulldogs prevailed 86-66 in West Coast Conference play in Firestone Fieldhouse.
 
The Waves (7-21, 1-12) trimmed what had been as much as a 21-point deficit down to eight with less than 13 minutes remaining, but the Bulldogs (22-2, 11-0) were able to reassert themselves late for their 15th straight win.
 
BIG WAVES

• Freshman guard Houston Mallette (Alameda, Calif./Pacifica Christian HS), the reigning WCC Freshman of the Week, had his third straight 20-point game. He sank two three-pointers, his 22nd consecutive game with a three, and moved within four three-pointers of the Pepperdine freshman record (he has 62, the record is 66). He added four rebounds.
• Junior forward Jan Zidek (Prague, Czech Republic) contributed 16 points, three rebounds and two steals.
• Senior guard Darryl Polk Jr. (Long Beach, Calif./Long Beach Poly HS) scored 10 points, his second-highest output of the season.
• Senior center Victor Ohia Obioha (Owerri, Nigeria/Hillcrest HS) had seven points, seven rebounds and two blocks.
• Senior guard Jay Yoon (Arcadia, Calif./Arcadia HS) played a career-high 12 minutes and was a +11 in plus/minus.

PLAY BY PLAY
 
Mallette scored seven points in the first four minutes and it was just 10-9 Gonzaga at that point. But, the Bulldogs used a 14-2 run to go ahead 24-11. It was a 15-point game at 30-15 with eight minutes left, but a 7-0 Pepperdine run got the deficit down to eight. Gonzaga later came back with 13 straight points, however, pushing the lead to 21 points at 45-24. The Waves scored the final five points of the half to make it 45-29 at the break.
 
Gonzaga led by 18 at 57-39 when Mallette had six points and Ohia Obioha had four in a 10-0 run that cut the deficit to eight at 57-49 with 12:58 left. The Waves also made it a single-digit game at 60-51 with 11:49 left after a Mallette jumper. It was a 12-point game at 68-56 with less than eight minutes left, but hopes of a comeback victory were dashed when the Bulldogs went on 12-1 over the next four minutes. Gonzaga's biggest lead of the game, 23 points, came near the end.
 
KEY STATS

• The Waves were outshot 51.5% to 37.5%.
• Gonzaga owned a 50-24 rebounding edge, and it was 16-7 in second-chance points.
• Pepperdine only committed nine turnovers while forcing 14.
• Gonzaga got 19 points from Drew Timme, 18 points and 17 rebounds from Chet Holmgren and 14 assists from Andrew Nembhard.

NOTABLE 

• The Waves were down to nine available players, eight of them on scholarship. Maxwell Lewis suffered a wrist injury against BYU on Saturday and will miss the remainder of the season. Jade' Smith missed his fourth straight game due to injury and remains day-to-day.
• The three available freshmen scored 50% of tonight's points.
• This was the second straight year, and the third time ever, that Firestone Fieldhouse had hosted the nation's #1 team.

QUOTABLE
 
Pepperdine Coach Lorenzo Romar said: "Our students coming out tonight made all the difference in the world. Shout out to our students for coming out and supporting us. We have one more game against Santa Clara next week and we'd love them out here again."
 
UP NEXT
 
Pepperdine visits Portland on Saturday (Feb. 19) at 5 p.m. The game will be streamed on the WCC Network and there will be an audio-only WaveCasts at PepperdineWaves.com.