Waves roll over San Francisco on the Hilltop 98-84

Pepperdine rolled over San Francisco for a wire to wire win that was nowhere near as close as the final score, just a 14 point difference, would indicate.

A strong defensive start and uncharacteristically potent offensive performance gave the Waves their eleventh win of the season and a season high 98 points. Lamond Murray Jr.'s breakout season continued, the junior scored the game high with 29 points. Jeremy Major added 20 points but made an even greater impact on the defensive end, blocking two shots in the paint and pulling down eight rebounds despite being just 5-foot-11.

Stacy Davis (12 points) continued his climb up the Waves' all time scoring list. He jumped from ninth to seventh and remains on pace to finish his career atop the list.

Ronnie Boyce has been a revelation for the Dons since the start of conference play. With a team high 25 points today the junior college transfer is now averaging 17.8 points per game in WCC play. He scored a total of 30 points during non-conference play.

Other than Boyce, though, the Dons played very poorly.

San Francisco struggled to get anything going early, on either end of the floor. Sluggish defense allowed a Waves group that ranks in the bottom 100 nationally in effective field goal percentage to shoot over 50% from both the field and from three. On the offensive end the Dons couldn't make shots in the first half, and quite often didn't even get to take a shot. Pepperdine scored 17 points on 14 Dons' turnovers in the first half.

Over five and a half minutes late in the first half Pepperdine hit nine straight shots, including four straight threes (six of the nine shots were from long range), and took a 51-25 lead.

Coming out of the half the Dons immediately coughed the ball up on their first possession. Though they would make a comeback, going from 39% shooting in the first to 53% in the second, it was far too late.

With the Waves up big early in the second the home team started to show its frustration. Tim Derksen (eight points) earned a flagrant one for throwing a forearm into Kameron Edwards' (seven points) face while going for a block. Shortly thereafter short fused Rex Walters earned a technical for repeatedly stepping out of the coaching box and yelling at the officials.

The frustration boiled over but may have sparked his team, though, as the Dons put together a legitimate comeback attempt.

Over the final five minutes of the game San Francisco shut down Pepperdine (1-5 FG) and turned it up offensively (9-15 FG). Too little, too late however, as Pepperdine's lead was too much to overcome and the Waves hung on at the line.

Pepperdine is now 11-7 on the season and 4-3 in WCC play. San Francisco falls to 9-9 (3-5).