MALIBU – In
Ed Schilling's first act as head coach, the Pepperdine men's basketball team led the Western Illinois Leathernecks for most of the contest on Wednesday night and delivered a 77-64 opening-night win.
BIG WAVES
- Stefan Todorovic (Belgrade, Serbia/SMU/USF) led all scorers with 25 on 8-of-11 field goal shooting while pulling down five boards and dishing out three assists.
- Moe Odum (The Bronx, N.Y./Pacific) contributed 18 points on 3-of-5 shooting from beyond the arc and giving out eight assists on the night.
- Zion Bethea (South Orange, N.J./Delaware) scored all 15 of his points in the second half, shooting 66.7% from the field and snatching two steals to go with two boards.
- Dovydas Butka (Panevezys, Lithuania) contributed eight points but shined defensively, collecting 10 rebounds.
SURF REPORT
- The Waves outshot WIU in both field goal and three point range, going for 53.8% and 46.7% respectively compared to the Leathernecks 41% and 21.7%.
- Pepperdine also outrebounded WIU at a rate of 35-26.
- The most lopsided stat of the night showed the Waves score 20 points off of fast break opportunities while WIU scored just seven.
RECAP
Right off of the tip, Butka delivered a layup from Odum for Pepperdine's first points of the season. The two teams stayed neck-and-neck for a large portion of the first half before a personal 11-0 run from Todorovic stretched the lead to seven near the midway point. WIU would find ways to score, however, as Rodrick Payne went on his own run to keep things interesting. It wasn't until seconds before intermission that the Waves would lead by seven again, going into the locker rooms at a score of 34-27.
In the opening minutes of the second half, Pepperdine stretched the lead to 15 after seeing Bethea come alive from the three, sandwiched between Odum jumpers. The Waves never looked back, stiff-arming the Leathernecks the rest of the way through as WIU never got any closer than eight points. The Waves earned defensive stops and gathered boards as Butka,
Boubacar Coulibaly and
Alonso Faure came up huge in the WIU lane. A Coulibaly block led to a Bethea fastbreak steal with just over a minute to play and gave Pepperdine its largest lead at 16 before trickling down to a 77-64 opening-night win.
UP NEXT
The Waves head to La Jolla, Calif. this Saturday to take on UC San Diego on their home court set for a 7 p.m. start on ESPN+.
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