DePaul Defense Stalls Pepperdine, 85-64

Pepperdine started out like a house on fire Saturday evening, but DePaul quickly brought out the hoses.

The Waves (3-1) were unable to sustain an early lead and were beaten by DePaul, 85-64, before 3,104 at Firestone Fieldhouse in Malibu.

Pepperdine used balanced scoring to build a 16-10 lead in the first six minutes.

But the Waves, harried by a swarming DePaul defense, began missing shots--including a couple of dunks--and throwing the ball away.

The Blue Demons (3-0) capitalized on the mistakes and came back to take a 38-31 lead at halftime.

David Booth scored eight of his 21 points in the first five minutes of the second half, spurring DePaul to a 60-39 advantage with 12:31 left.

Geoff Lear responded with eight of his team-high 18 points in the next five minutes, igniting a 15-4 run by Pepperdine, and the Waves narrowed the gap to 64-54 with 6:48 remaining.

But Pepperdine had lost its spark, and DePaul outscored the Waves, 21-10, the rest of the way.

Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury said that his team “got a little greedy” after leading early. “We couldn’t sustain it against a team more experienced than we are.”

Asbury said he didn’t think his team was intimidated by DePaul early in the game, “but over a period of time we were.”

Stephen Howard led DePaul with 24 points and nine rebounds.

Lear had a game-high 10 rebounds to go with his 18 points, but the Waves were out-rebounded, 40-34.

Pepperdine’s Doug Christie scored 11 points on four-of-14 shooting, and teammate Rex Manu added 10 points.

The Waves shot only 38.5% from the field (25 for 65), and DePaul shot 50.9% (28 for 55). On free throws, Pepperdine shot a poor 52.4% (11 for 21), and DePaul shot 87.1% (27 for 31).