The Pepperdine men’s and women’s basketball teams will take to the court for the first time in 2021 this week.Â
The men’s team will play at the No.1-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs on Thursday. The women’s squad will play at Loyola Marymount on Saturday.Â
Both teams had games scheduled around the new year postponed due to positive COVID-19 tests.Â
Games delayed or axed due to the coronavirus has been a common occurrence this college basketball season across the nation. Some squads have lost a handful of contests, while others have had entire seasons ended. Â
The 4-5 men’s team had three contests delayed—Dec. 31 against BYU, Jan. 2 against Saint Mary’s and Jan. 7 against San Francisco—in the days since the team’s last contest, a defeat to CSU Bakersfield on Dec. 23.Â
The matchups were all West Coast Conference games recently rescheduled by the conference.Â
The Waves’ competition against Gonzaga is now its WCC opener. In the Bulldogs, the Waves face an opponent that is 12-0 and coming off a dominating win over Portland, another WCC team, on Jan. 9. Gonzaga, the defending WCC champions, downed Portland, 116-88.Â
Pepperdine’s men’s team lost both of its matchups against the Bulldogs last season.Â
The Waves men’s first rescheduled game is Jan. 27 versus BYU at home. The next is at San Francisco on Feb. 9. The third, the matchup against Saint Mary’s, is now Feb. 22 in the opposition’s home gym.Â
The Pepperdine women’s hoops team had four WCC games postponed. The 3-3 team’s road games against San Francisco on Jan. 2 and Santa Clara on Jan. 4, and home contests San Diego on Jan. 7 and BYU on Jan. 9, had not been rescheduled as of press time.Â
The Waves’ women’s next game is on Saturday at Loyola Marymount. The squad’s last contest was a Dec. 30 loss to Gonzaga at home.Â
Before the hiatuses, the Pepperdine women’s team had two games canceled because of the coronavirus, while the men’s team had four games wiped off the schedule. All the canceled matchups were nonconference games.