Pepperdine University’s men’s basketball team is set to continue its West Coast Conference (WCC) schedule with two games this week. The Waves, currently holding a 5-12 overall record and winless in conference play at 0-4, will face San Diego on Thursday at the Jenny Craig Pavilion before returning home to host San Francisco on Saturday at Firestone Fieldhouse.
Both contests will be available for streaming on ESPN+. Al Epstein and Joey Vergilis are scheduled to provide commentary for the Saturday matchup in Malibu.
The team is coming off a narrow 74-69 loss against Pacific last Sunday. In that game, Javon Cooley led Pepperdine with 18 points and seven rebounds. Styles Phipps contributed 14 points, six rebounds, and four assists. The Waves forced a season-high 18 turnovers from their opponent and shot an efficient 14-for-15 from the free throw line.
Pepperdine ranks among the top teams nationally in free throw shooting, standing at 17th in the country with a .778 percentage. This figure places them second within the WCC, having converted 238 of their 306 attempts so far this season. The Waves have made over 70 percent of their free throws in 11 of their last 13 games.
The team features balanced scoring, with four players—Aaron Clark, Javon Cooley, Styles Phipps, and Danilo Dozic—averaging double figures per game. Seven different players have led Pepperdine in scoring during individual games this season. The Waves also rank fifth in the conference for offensive rebounds per game at an average of 11.3.
Javon Cooley leads Pepperdine with an average of 13.4 points per game and is second on the team with 5.1 rebounds per contest. Over his past eight games, he has shot just over fifty-three percent from the field while making eleven three-pointers during that span. He is one of five WCC players ranked in both the top twenty for scoring and rebounding within the conference and holds third place in WCC free throw percentage (.930), which also ranks him eleventh nationally.
Styles Phipps stands out as one of only three Division I players averaging more than eleven-and-a-half points, six rebounds, and five assists per game this season—a group that includes Joshua Jefferson (Iowa State) and Quion Williams (Arkansas-Pine Bluff). Phipps is third in assists per game within the WCC at 5.1 and has achieved both a points/rebounds double-double and a points/assists double-double this year.
Aaron Clark averages twelve-and-a-half points per game (21st in WCC), scored twelve points against Pacific on five-of-eight shooting, ranks seventh in steals (26 total), and is one of three conference players averaging at least twelve-and-a-half points, three rebounds, and one-and-a-half steals per contest.
Danilo Dozic leads Pepperdine with twenty-seven made three-pointers this season after hitting three out of five attempts from beyond the arc against Pacific.
Pavle Stosic has started eleven consecutive games as part of Pepperdine’s frontcourt rotation while Yonatan Levy has increased his long-range output recently by making eight threes across his last eight appearances.
Historically, Pepperdine holds a favorable record against San Diego at seventy-one wins to fifty losses overall—including thirty road victories—and won both meetings last season: ninety-eight to ninety away from home followed by eighty-eight to eighty-one in Malibu. However, they have lost six out of their last ten matchups versus San Diego.
Against San Francisco, Pepperdine trails eighty-nine to fifty-four all-time but maintains a twenty-six win home record versus thirty-seven losses against them; they lost last year’s sole meeting by seventeen points at home.
San Diego was projected ninth in this year’s preseason poll for the WCC but currently sits ahead of Pepperdine after earning its lone league victory over Pacific; Ty-Laur Johnson leads them offensively with nearly fifteen points per game along with a conference-best average of two-point-four steals.
San Francisco was picked third before league play began; since then they lead all WCC teams by limiting opponents’ three-point accuracy to under twenty-seven percent while allowing just sixty-five point three points each contest defensively. David Fuchs anchors their effort on the boards ranking fourth conference-wide with just over seven rebounds per outing while contributing twelve-point-four points as well.
Following these two games, Pepperdine will remain home to host Portland next Wednesday evening.
According to program history provided by Pepperdine University Athletics, men’s basketball has appeared thirteen times in NCAA postseason tournaments while claiming twelve regular-season championships within its conference along with three tournament titles. The program most recently captured national attention by winning the College Basketball Invitational Tournament (CBI) championship in spring 2021; nineteen alumni have been named All-Americans or played professionally—including representation every NBA season between 1976–2011.
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