November 21, 1998
The Beach who led by as many as 10 in the first half (27-17) still went into intermission up by six 31-25. The first half saw the Beach shoot 51% to Pepperdines 36%, Pepperdine had an advantage in rebounds, but also had more turnovers and did not shoot a free throw in the first half. The achilles heal of the Beach reared its head again as they only made two of seven free throws in the first half. Terrible free throw shooting would proove to be one of many items that would ultimately lead to defeat.
Richie Smalls played a terrific half with 10pts and 6 rebounds to almost single handidly keep the Beach in the lead. Unfortunately, Pepperdine took him out of the game with about two minutes left before the half with a cheap shot foul, which prooved to alter his game after the half, as he finished the game with a total of 12 pts and 8 rebounds.
Pepperdine came out of intermission and immediately went on a 7-0 run to take a one point lead at 32-31, a lead that they would never relinquish.
A cavalcade of missed layups, dunks, and open 13' shots, lead to a twelve minute span during the second half, which saw the Beach score only four points. Unbeleivably, the Beach never trailed by more than six points and had actually closed the gap to four many times.
A frightening head first fall by D'Cean Bryant, late in the second half, in which it appeared for a second that he may have been seriously injured, was a false alarm, but even this could not rally the Beach to a victory.
The second half for the Beach saw them score only 17 points, miss too many free throws, generate too many turnovers, and generally tire as Coach Morgan went with basically a seven man rotation, against Pepperdines 10 man rotation. D'Cean Bryant was a non-factor scoring zero points with possibly two rebounds. Tommie Davis was also an offensive non-factor scoring zero points, while fouling out of the game in the final seconds. The lack of depth, will absolutely kill the Beach this season, apparently Ian Milley, James Delone, and Allan Gomez are so pathetically horrible that Coach Morgan is afraid to even use them for a minute breather. Too bad.
The bottom line is this..... this was a game that was ours for the taking. Unfortunately too many mistakes lead to another loss!
On the bright side, the Beach held a Pepperdine team that had just man-handled a Fresno St team, and almost walked away with an upset victory. Lets hope that this improvement continues throughout the season. If this happens, the season will be a success.