The No. 8 seed Pilots fell to No. 9 Pepperdine 86-73 in the second round of the West Coast Conference (WCC) Tournament on March 7.
With the loss, the Pilots end their season 7-11 in conference play and 12-20 overall.
The Pilots led the game by 14 with 12 minutes left in regulation until the Waves surged late with a standout performance from junior guard Moe Odum. Odum scored 31 points and snagged 11 assists to hand the Pilots their ticket home.
This Portland team had previously beaten the Waves by 20 in two games this season and seemed surprised by Pepperdine’s showing. In a press conference following the game, Vukasin Masic, who led the Pilots with 26 points, said that Odum’s performance was unexpected and that any indicators of it were not present in the scouting report.
Pepperdine outpaced the Pilots in shooting and free throws and crucially had a 41-28 rebounding margin, leading to an 18-9 advantage in second-chance points. Freshman star Austin Rapp, who had 16 points with seven rebounds, attributes the loss to several factors, including the momentum these rebounds created for the Waves.
“I think they got a bit of momentum,” Rapp said. “I don’t think we let up, but we let down on our principles. We let them dictate the game a little bit. Offensively, we got stagnant and stopped moving the ball.”
Head Coach Shantay Legans says that while he’s disappointed with the team’s performance this year, looking ahead, his focus will be on retaining young talent through the transfer portal.
“The whole thing this year is to get some young guys in and retain them,” Legans said. “We’ve lost some key players in the transfer portal…The top four teams in our league all retained a lot of their guys…it's all about retention. We’re going to try to do that with everything in our might this year.”
Maggie Dapp is the Sports Editor at The Beacon. She can be reached at dapp26@up.edu.
