By Jeff Faraudo
#WCChoops columnist | ARCHIVES
Colbey Ross passed a West Coast Conference legend on Saturday night.
Now he wants to help his Pepperdine squad get to the championship game of the University Credit Union WCC Tournament.
Ross scored 25 points Saturday night, leading the third-seeded Waves (12-11) to a 78-70 win over No. 7 Santa Clara (12-8) and into Monday’s 9 p.m. tournament semifinal against BYU (19-5). The Waves and Cougars split two regular-season games, and the winner will play Tuesday for the WCC title and the NCAA tournament berth.
When Ross converted the first of two free throws with 15:15 left in the second half, he moved ahead of the late
Hank Gathers as the WCC tournament’s career scoring leader.
“Wow. I didn’t know that,” Ross said afterward. “To be mentioned with a name like that, a legend, it means a lot, I’ve been here for four years, that helps. That’s just a crazy stat.”
Ross, who also had 12 assists against the Broncos, now has 196 points in nine career conference tournament games. Gathers, who died on the court in Loyola Marymount’s 1990 appearance in the WCC tournament, scored 186 points in seven games.
But Ross has other goals in mind for the rest of this tournament. Asked about making a tournament run, he said, “We didn’t come here to just win one game. That’s not our goal. What my career needs is to win. To win a championship is all I’ve wanted to do since I’ve been at Pepperdine.”
The Waves were much more than a one-man show on Saturday night.
Kessler Edwards had 21 points and nine rebounds,
Jan Zidek posted 13 points and 10 rebounds, giving Pepperdine three players with double-doubles.
Coach
Lorenzo Romar said Ross orchestrated everything the Waves did offensively. “I thought Colbey did a great job of controlling the tempo, pushing it, bringing it out when we didn’t have anything,” Romar said.
ROMAR ON THE RECORD: Romar gave his star player some context on his achievement of passing Hank Gathers as the WCC tournament’s career scoring leader.
“No offense to Colbey, but he’s heard of
Hank Gathers. He’s aware of who Hank Gathers is,” Romar said. “I saw Hank Gathers in person. For Colbey to have broken that record is just, I mean, I didn’t know that . . . that’s phenomenal. That’s high-level stuff.
“I joke all the time every time somebody in the NBA breaks a record, they broke Wilt Chamberlain’s record. Colbey’s getting like this here at Pepperdine. You just see Colbey has broken another record. It’s just a credit to him and all of his hard work over the years, his no-nonsense attitude, not settling for mediocrity. All of that — it’s paid off for him.”
THE BYU CHALLENGE: Pepperdine and BYU split two games in a span of five days in late January, but it wasn’t lost on Romar that the Cougars have lost only to top-ranked Gonzaga in seven games since then.
“They have been an absolute buzz-saw. They’ve played exceptional basketball,” Romar said. "We already knew they were really good. They’ve turned it up. They’re a better basketball team than when we played them the last time”
Romar noted the progress made by freshman
Caleb Lohner and said center
Matt Haarms, the WCC Defensive Player of the Gear “dominates the game with his presence.” He also complimented senior guard
Alex Barcello.
“They have a lot of good pieces, they’re well-coached, they play with a purpose,” Romar said. “We’re going to have to play really good basketball in order to come out on top in that game.”
BRONCOS’ OFFENSE STALLS: After a nice stretch of offensive efficiency, Santa Clara lost its rhythm at that end of the court. The Broncos had averaged 84.3 points on 52-percent shooting, including 40 percent from the 3-point arc the previous four games.
Against Pepperdine, they made just 3 of 20 attempts from distance and missed nine free throws, eight of them in the second half. “There’s no question our guys didn’t have the same fuel in the tank playing a third consecutive game,” said Santa Clara coach
Herb Sendek, whose squad beat Portland and Pacific to reach the quarterfinals.
A SEASON LIKE NO OTHER: Santa Clara’s COVID-19 experience included having to move off-campus to Santa Cruz to live, practice and play because of healthy and safety restrictions in Santa Clara County.
All of that made Saturday’s defeat tougher still, said
Willie Caruso, who led the Broncos with 16 points against Pepperdine. “Definitely it hurts a lot because nobody else but us who are part of the team can tell how hard we had to work all these months and all the sacrifices we had to do,” the junior from Naples, Italy said. "Keep the bubble tight, don’t see our parents, our friends, our family members. That’s why this loss hurts because we put so much work and we went through a lot. It’s pretty tough right now.”
“I am just incredibly proud of our team,” Sendek said. “Everything they had to contend with this year, if you made a list it would cause you to shake your head.”
STAT OF THE GAME: Santa Clara trailed 72-54 with 5:40 left before using a 16-2 run to get within 74-70 with 49 seconds left. But the Broncos missed their final six shots of the game and go no closer.
QUOTE OF THE GAME: “That gave us a lot of confidence. That was my first time beating them. We know we can compete with them, we can beat them.” —
Colbey Ross on Pepperdine’s 76-73 win over BYU on Jan 27
that snapped a six-game losing streak in the series