Swish, splash, swish, splash. The orange hoop 10 feet above the hardwood in Fullerton seemed as wide as the ocean blue for Pepperdine’s Allie Green two games ago.
The senior women’s basketball player made all four of her attempts from the land of three and shot eight of nine from the field, scoring 20 points, in the first half of the Waves’ win over Cal State Fullerton on Dec. 17.
Green said having the hot hand in the contest’s first two quarters was a good feeling.
“Once you come in the game and hit your first few shots, it gets your momentum going,” Green, who finished with 29 points, said. “You can’t go downhill from there.”
Pepperdine coach Ryan Weisenberg said Green’s blazing performance in Pepperdine’s 69-58 defeat of Fullerton was sweltering.
“She couldn’t miss,” he said. “I’ve never seen her shoot like that before.”
The 21-year-old followed-up her second-best scoring effort in a Waves uniform by scoring her age in Pepperdine’s 62-57 overtime win over CSU Bakersfield on Dec. 19.
The victory was Pepperdine’s second of the season. Weisenberg said Green’s play on offense and defense in both games were key to the Waves moving out of the winless column.
“She started the season off really slow,” the coach said of Green. “In her mind, she thought she had to carry the team offensively and that affected her defense and rebounding.”
Weisenberg added that Green played two all-around games that allowed the four-year player to “hit some big shots for us.”
Green’s slump through the season’s first nine games included some single digit scoring outings, below her 13.6 point-per-game average. The 5-foot-10, Sacramento native said the recent standout showings were due to spending time working on her jump shot and focusing.
“It wasn’t a confidence thing,” Green said. “I was battling some things off the court, so I had to get my head back into it.”
In the two Waves Ws, Green also had 14 rebounds and two blocks. She wasn’t the only Pepperdine player to shine. Sophomore forward Yasmine Robinson Bacote had 18 points in the first win and 14 points in the second one. Freshman guard Barbara Sitanggan had nine assists and nine rebounds against Fullerton, and redshirt freshman center Megan House had 13 rebounds against Bakersfield.
Green’s success is important for 2-9 Pepperdine. They’ll need her to do well in their Thursday night game against Gonzaga, possibly the West Coast Conference’s best team.
The Waves host the Bulldogs in the WCC-opener for both schools. The 9-2 Zags enter the 7 p.m. game having won six straight.
Pepperdine’s 15-member crew only includes two upperclassmen, whereas the Bulldogs are an experienced bunch.
Weisenberg expects the match-up to be good one.
“They have great seniors that will capitalize on mistakes and go after you again,” he said of Gonzaga last week. “Practice and preparing for the way they play will be key, so we can take advantage of some of their weaknesses.”
Pepperdine opened the season with a string of losses to Long Beach State, UC Santa Barbara, Nevada, New Mexico State, Duke, Utah Valley, Cal Poly, Denver and UNLV.
Weisenberg gave partially attribution of the nine losses to youth finding their way amid college basketball’s landscape. The Waves are composed of seven freshmen, six sophomores, one junior and one senior.
Weisenberg said in the wins Pepperdine executed their offensive and defensive game plans effectively.
The head Wave said he and his coaching staff are focusing on what worked for Pepperdine during their first 11 games and gearing the team to eliminating “freshman and sophomore mistakes” such as turnovers in timely situations, not chasing down rebounds and not taking open shots.
“I think I was the only coach in the whole country yelling at players to shoot the ball,” Weisenberg noted. “I believe this team has the talent, has the focus. It’s now just about experience and it’s about making good decisions.”
The Waves’ lone senior, Green, said one good decision was changing their overall mentality in game preparation. That included communicating better and challenging each other.
“We were really competitive in practices and really challenged each other,” Green said. “Then, we got wins.”
She said the change happened before Pepperdine’s Dec. 9, 68-61 loss to UNLV.
“We played really well against UNLV,” she said “From then on it’s been the same. We just have to keep the momentum going.”
Weisenberg said Green didn’t have a great game against UNLV, so other players stepped up. In the eight games before, Pepperdine seemed to wait for Green to get going.
“We grew as a team,” he said.
Robinson Bacote is one player that improved over the summer. The 5-foot-11 front court player is averaging 14.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game. Last season, she scored 4.5 points and grabbed 2.5 rebounds per game.
Weisenberg said Robinson Bacote worked really hard in the offseason.
“She focused not only on her offensive game, but she focused on her rebounding,” he said. “She is almost averaging a double-double and has been really key on the boards for us. Offensively, she has gone into beast mode for us. When she wants it, I don’t think anyone can stop her.”
Sydney Bordonaro, a 5-foot-7 guard, is averaging 13.6 points and five rebounds, a year after tearing the labrum in her left shoulder. The redshirt freshman put on a three-point show in Pepperdine’s loss to Duke. She hit seven triples enroute to 23 points.
Pepperdine has 17 WCC games after the Gonzaga contest. Green said Pepperdine is out to make opponents respect them.
“We need to keep doing what we are doing, and I think we will come out with some wins,” she said.