Pepperdine Leads by 10 at Halftime, Loses, 60-55
It was a study of two halves for the Pepperdine basketball team in its 60-55 loss to UC Santa Barbara on Monday night in a nonconference game at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.
Behind the shooting of center Derek Noether and forward Dana Jones, Pepperdine opened a 32-22 halftime lead. But the Waves went cold in the second half, and Santa Barbara used the outside shooting of guards Ray Kelly and Chris Ford to help the Gauchos stay undefeated at 3-0. Pepperdine is 2-2.
Kelly scored 11 of his 14 points during the second half and Ford had nine of his 12.
“They (the Gauchos) were bad in the first half, and we were worse in the second,†Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury said. “It’s no mystery why we lost.â€
After making 46.7% of its shots during the first half, Pepperdine shot only 28.2% during the second half.
Junior point guard Damin Lopez, the leading scorer for the Waves, made only one of 10 shots, missed all five of his three-point attempts and finished with a season low of four points.
“They did a nice job on Lopez and Lopez did a nice job on himself,†Asbury said. “He had a rough game. He started pressing a lot, but hopefully he’ll learn from it.â€
The Gauchos used a 12-0 run in the first six minutes of the second half to go ahead to stay. They opened their biggest lead at 60-53 with 44 seconds remaining on a free throw by Kelly.
“We just lost our intensity a bit in the second half, and they hit a couple of three-pointers to get themselves up,†Asbury said. “Neither one of us is a very good team right now. We’re both pretty inconsistent.â€
Pepperdine was led by Jones with 11 points. Noether and forwards Byron Jenson and Steve Guild each had nine points.
