PORTLAND – In a battle largely decided by long-range accuracy, the Pepperdine men's basketball team was downed 93-89 by Portland's three-point barrage on Saturday evening.
 
The Waves (9-15, 2-7 WCC) recorded two players in the 20+ point range and junior Michael Ajayi accrued his 12^th double-double of the season to enter the Pepperdine single-season leaderboard tied for ninth.
 
BIG WAVES

• Houston Mallette (Alameda, Calif./Pacifica Christian) scored a team-high 28 points on 10-of-15 field goals and 5-of-8 three-point shooting with 20 coming in the first half. The junior also accumulated four boards, three assists and two blocks.
• Michael Ajayi (Kent, Wash./Pierce College) put together 17 points and 14 rebounds in his 12^th double-double, to go with two assists and two steals.
• Jevon Porter (Columbia, Mo./Father Tolton Catholic) hit four of his nine attempts from long range to total 22 points and six boards with two assists and a block.
• Ethan Anderson (Carson, Calif./USC/Wyoming) delivered clutch drives in the second half for his 10 total points, followed by three rebounds two assists and a steal.

 
KEY STATS

• Pepperdine won the battle in the paint, going for 38 compared to Portland's 30, and narrowly edged the Pilots in the rebounding category at 31-30.
• The two teams shot similar marks from field goal range- 54% for Pepperdine and 55% for Portland- but the Pilots fared better from long range at a 55% clip, good for 16-of-29 on the night. The Waves' three-point total was not half bad either, as the team shot just under 50% on 12-of-26 shooting.

 
PLAY BY PLAY
Mallette needed little time to get hot, starting the Waves off with a wing three after just 40 seconds of play. Portland answered inside, but the Alameda, Calif.-native would respond every time with a dagger three, recording five long-range buckets by the nine-minute mark. The teams fought back and forth as Mallette claimed 15 of the team's 28 points midway through the half. Pepperdine cooled off once the clock hit nine minutes, seeing a 10-run by the Pilots that included three-straight makes from beyond the arc. Defensive lapses left the corners open for Portland's shooters as the Pilots put in nine of 17 three-point attempts. In the last 20 seconds of the half, Mallette blocked a Portland three to put the halftime score at 52-41 in the opponent's favor.
 
To open the second stanza, Mallette and Anderson sandwiched a tough defensive stop with drives down the lane but the three-point barrage from the Pilots remained constant. Portland would stretch their lead by as much as 18 and the Waves would put several well-defended possessions together but the hot-shooting Pilots had the answer each time. With just over 10 left in the game, a Cooper corner three followed by a fast-break Ajayi long-range dagger brought the Waves within 10 at the seven-minute mark but the Pilots would add another three before Anderson facilitated an acrobatic finish from Nils Cooper to pull within nine.
 
The last minute-and-a-half had the Waves' faithful on their feet, as 10-0 Pepperdine run would bring the lead to just three with under a minute to go. The Waves' equalizing three-point attempt would not hit its mark, however, and a Portland free-throw sealed the win for the Pilots at a final score of 93-89.
 
UP NEXT
Pepperdine returns to Malibu for a Thursday matchup against San Francisco set to begin at 8 p.m. televised nationally on ESPNU.