LAS VEGAS - Irrepressible Moe Odum and the Pepperdine Waves aren’t ready to go home. Not even to their campus at beautiful Malibu.
“We’re not worried about anything else but this tournament,” Odum said. “We’re not here to explore Vegas. We’re here to win basketball games.”
The ninth-seeded Waves won their third game in three nights at the Credit Union 1 West Coast Conference Basketball Championship on Sunday, taking down No. 4 Santa Clara 78-76 in a quarterfinal round game at Orleans Arena.
“We say find a way or find an excuse. We definitely found a way today,” forward Stefan Todorovic said. “We’re here to stay. That’s what’s happening . . . we’re still playing.”
The latest stunning victory earns Pepperdine (13-21) a semifinal shot at 21st-ranked and top-seeded Saint Mary’s (27-4) on Monday at 6 p.m. The Gaels, who went 17-1 in WCC play to win the regular-season title, have won the past seven meetings vs. the Waves.
Odum has been the catalyst for Pepperdine’s unexpected run. A junior point guard from Bronx, NY, who transferred from Pacific this past offseason, Odum delivered 19 points and 13 rebounds against the Broncos, giving him 67 points and a West Coast Conference tournament-record 35 assists in three games here.
He is the just second player in NCAA history to record three straight double-doubles with points and assists in conference tournament play, the first to do so scoring at least 15 points in each game.
“Moe is the guy you’ve just got to follow,” said Todorovic, who matched him with 19 points Sunday and has totaled 72 in three WCC contests.
No one was more impressed by Odum than veteran Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek.
“Odum really is the engine that makes them go,” Sendek said. “He makes everybody better. They’re playing loose, obviously having fun. Odum has given them tremendous vocal leadership.”
Santa Clara jumped out to an early 21-8 lead but it wasn’t anything they didn’t experience in comeback wins over Portland and Oregon State the two previous nights.
The Waves closed the gap to 40-36 by halftime, finally drawing even at 56-all when Todorovic hit a 3-pointer off a feed from Odum. It was tied again at 58-58 before Pepperdine ran off eight straight points to take a lead it never relinquished.
The Waves gave no indication in recent weeks they were ready to spring a run like this on the WCC. They had lost five in a row and eight of nine before arriving in Vegas. But first-year coach Ed Schilling saw signs in practice that the team wasn’t ready to cash in the season.
“I’m just happy we’ve continued to fight,” Schilling said. “We’re fortunate that we’ve gotten a little bit better. To have some shots go down and some big shots go our way, it validates the process for our guys.”
Forwards Dovydas Butka and Boubacar Coulibaly added 13 and 11 points, respectively, for the Waves, with Butka also collecting three steals.
Tyeree Bryan scored 18 points and Brenton Knapper had 17 for the Broncos (20-12). But after making 8 of 20 shots from the 3-point arc in the first half, Santa Clara converted just 4 of 14 over the final 20 minutes.
UP NEXT: When they tip off against Saint Mary’s, the Waves will become the first team to play four games in four days at this event since LMU, also a No 9 seed, did so in 2013. The Lions won their first three before losing in the semifinals.
Schilling isn’t worried about fatigue as his squad prepares to face Saint Mary’s.
“You need energy against Saint Mary’s but you need a whole lot of other stuff vs Saint Mary’s,” he said. “They’ve got experience and they’ve got a whole lot of talented players. But you look at our guys and they don’t look tired.
“We practice day after day. Let’s play day after day,” he added. “We just want to be the best version of Pepperdine. Is that good enough to beat Saint Mary’s? I don’t know. Nobody thought we were good enough to beat Santa Clara.”
STRAYING FROM THE SCRIPT: The Broncos have had a terrific season and have won 20 games for a fifth consecutive non-COVID season. Sendek expects Santa Clara to get a postseason invite, even if it’s not the NCAA Tournament bid they have coveted since the program’s most recent bid in 1996.
Santa Clara has thrived this season shooting the 3-pointer and entered play Sunday averaging 10.8 per game — sixth-best in the nation. They set a WCC record by making 23 shots from beyond the arc vs. Washington State on Feb. 22.
They made 7 of their first 15 attempts against Pepperdine before cooling to a final line of 12 of 34. The issue, Sendek said, isn’t how many 3’s the team takes but whether they are “advantage 3’s,” taken in the correct circumstance.
“Even from the beginning of the game, and it wasn’t as obvious early, but I knew we took at least two or three early that weren’t Santa Clara 3’s,” Sendek said. “As the game went on and it became close, in too many instances guys tried to break away from what we do, and say, `I’ve got to be the hero right now and make a play.’ That typically doesn’t work.”