WAVES ONE VICTORY FROM TITLE THEY BEAT SAN DIEGO, CLOSE OUT AGAINST SANTA CLARA PEPPERDINE 90, SAN DIEGO 79.Byline: Vincent Bonsignore Staff Writer MALIBU - Spring break started at Pepperdine Friday, and with summer-like sunshine baking picturesque Malibu, the beaches along Pacific Coast Highway Pacific Coast Highway may refer to:
intr. & tr.v. bus·tled, bus·tling, bus·tles To move or cause to move energetically and busily. n. Excited and often noisy activity; a stir. with blissful students jump starting their week-long vacation in style. Not that everyone can afford to slip into relax mode just yet. The Pepperdine basketball team still has plenty of work left to do as it tries to wrap up the West Coast Conference championship. So while their fellow students were dashing to the store for sun-tan lotion lotion /lo·tion/ (lo´shun) a liquid suspension, solution, or emulsion for external application to the body. lo·tion n. 1. and flip-flops, the Waves put on their overalls and hard hats and got busy on San Diego San Diego (săn dēā`gō), city (1990 pop. 1,110,549), seat of San Diego co., S Calif., on San Diego Bay; inc. 1850. San Diego includes the unincorporated communities of La Jolla and Spring Valley. Coronado is across the bay. , beating the Toreros 90-79 before 1,725 fans at Firestone Fieldhouse Firestone Fieldhouse is a multipurpose arena located in Malibu, California, a suburb of Los Angeles. It was built in 1973 as the home of the Pepperdine University Waves basketball and volleyball teams, who still play at the Fieldhouse today. . The victory keeps the Waves (19-7, 12-1) in a first-place tie with Gonzaga (25-3, 12-1) in the WCC WCC n abbr (= World Council of Churches) → COE m (Conseil œcuménique des Églises) WCC n abbr (= World Council of Churches) → Weltkirchenrat m standings with one game left in the regular season. Pepperdine closes with Santa Clara Santa Clara, city, Cuba Santa Clara (sän`tä klä`rä), city (1994 est. pop. 217,000), capital of Villa Clara prov., central Cuba. tonight in Malibu while the Bulldogs finish at St. Mary's today. If both teams win today, a coin flip will decide who gets the No. 1 seed at next weekend's WCC tournament, in which the winner gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament NCAA Tournament can mean: Men's Sports
Pepperdine, which has played the fourth-toughest schedule in the country and beaten three teams in the top 25, figures to be on solid ground for an at-large berth provided it beats Santa Clara today and at least gets to the final of the conference tournament. Waves coach Paul Westphal Not to be confused with Paul Westhead. Paul Westphal (born November 30 1950 in Torrance, California) is a retired American basketball player and coach in the NBA. A native of California, Westphal has had a storied career in the NBA, both as a player and as a head coach. has maintained all along that the WCC deserves two teams in the Big Dance. ``We've been playing for the tournament since the first week of the season in our minds,'' Westphal said. ``Every game you have to prove yourself. We're right on the brink and now we need one more win to at least tie for the West Coast Conference championship with the seventh-ranked team in the country. That's pretty good. Twenty wins, that's what we're shooting for (today). San Diego coach Brad Holland
``They're a tournament team if I've ever seen one,'' Holland said. "They should be in the top 25. Terrance Johnson scored 24 points to lead the Waves while Jimmy Miggins added 22, Devin Montgomery had 13 and Boomer Brazzle had 10. Jason Blair had 26 points for the Toreros. Pepperdine was hoping to get rid of San Diego (14-12, 6-7) as quickly as possible, building a 19-point lead with four minutes left in the first half on Terrance Johnson's long-range shooting and Jimmy Miggins' twisting, spinning moves in the paint. ``We can't afford any let downs now,'' Miggins said. ``We still have another big game to play, then we've got the conference tournament. We just have to keep working hard.'' Pepperdine's big lead didn't last long, and before the Waves knew it, the Toreros had closed to within 68-63 with 11 minutes left in the game. The problem was rebounding. San Diego had a 46-36 edge in that department and had 21 on the offensive boards. It didn't help that Pepperdine didn't have power forward Glen McGowan, who injured his left knee in the Gonzaga loss last Saturday and is doubtful for tonight's game against Santa Clara. ``Fortunately our shooting made up for the problems we had on the boards,'' Westphal said. Pepperdine scored the next six points to go up 74-63, then went ahead 82-71 on a rim-rattling alley-oop slam dunk from Johnson off a high lob (1) See BLOB. (2) (Line Of Business) Refers to people, job titles and product lines, all of which pertain to a specific product or service area of the business. pass from Gary Colbert. The pesky Toreros, who pushed the Waves to double overtime in a 96-91 Pepperdine victory on Jan. 26 in San Diego, remained within striking distance the rest of the way but never could get closer than seven points. CAPTION(S): photo, box Photo: Alemany High of Mission Hills product Devin Montgomery left, and his Pepperdine teammates were a step ahead of Andre Laws and San Diego throughout their game. Eric Grigorian/Special to the Daily News Box: WCC STANDINGS |
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