The Pepperdine men’s basketball team lost to the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in a home game on Saturday, 86-58. The Waves have now lost 11 games in a row.
Georgia Tech (7-2) plays in the tough Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), which includes perennial basketball powerhouses North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest.
“You see a mountain of difference between an ACC team and a young, physically immature team like ours,” Pepperdine Head Coach Tom Asbury said. “I put them on our schedule for that very reason. I wanted to play against a team like that.”
The Waves (1-11) got off to a quick 8-2 lead, after two three-point baskets by Mychel Thompson. However, the Yellow Jackets quickly came back and established their own 14 point lead by halftime. Overall, the Yellow Jackets shot 54.8 percent from the field, compared to the Waves’ 36.2 percent. The Yellow Jackets also had seven fewer turnovers and eight more rebounds.
“[Pepperdine] showed us that they have some fight in them,” forward Alade Aminu, who had 18 points and 11 rebounds for the Yellow Jackets, said. “They were not going to let us do whatever we wanted on their home court. They showed a lot of heart and pride.”
Mychel Thompson led the Waves with 20 points. Lorne Jackson contributed seven points for Pepperdine before fouling out. For the Yellow Jackets, Gani Lawal had 11 points and 10 rebounds. Iman Shumpert added 15 points and seven assists, and Lewis Clinch had 12 points.
The Yellow Jackets are paced by star forward Gani Lawal, who is third in the ACC in scoring, first in rebounding and fourth in field goal percentage. He had his sixth double-double against the Waves, which now also leads the ACC.
“[Lawal] is a really big guy,” Waves center Corbin Moore, who led the team with eight rebounds, said. “I know he is expected to do really well in the NBA next year, and he is probably the best big man I have ever played against. He is strong and tough, and I tried to battle him as much as I could.”
Lawal had several acrobatic dunks that electrified the crowd, which included actor Arsenio Hall. “It felt great because I had been in a slump. I did not get a dunk against [the University of Illinois-Chicago] or Georgia State, so it was good to get a couple,” Lawal said.
Unfortunately for Los Angeles basketball fans, Georgia Tech guard D’Andre Bell did not play against the Waves. Bell, who attended Palisades Charter High School and played on football legend Jim Brown and Rudolph “Rock” Johnson’s Amer-I-Can club basketball team, will miss the entire season after being diagnosed in the preseason with spinal stenosis. The team visited Bell in the hospital on Friday after he had a successful surgery.
“We do not want to dwell on it because we cannot make excuses moving forward, but if I had one thing to add to this team, it would be a lock-down defender on the perimeter and a guy with a reliable 16-18 foot jumper, and that is what D’Andre was,” Georgia Tech Head Coach Paul Hewitt said.
Overall, the Yellow Jackets enjoyed their trip to Southern California, which included another game against USC, with one minor exception.
“California is beautiful,” Georgia Tech’s Alade Aminu said, smiling. “I love it out here, but I was waiting for the warm weather, and it was freezing. In Atlanta, [the weather] was fine, so I should have stayed in Atlanta.”
Earlier in the week, the Waves had an impressive showing against the USC Trojans. After trailing by 23 points at halftime, the Waves cut the deficit to five points in the second half, before losing 91-77. The Waves made seven second-half three-pointers to help reduce the deficit. Keion Bell led the Waves with 18 points against the Trojans, and Dane Suttle Jr. added 14 points. However, the Waves also lost to the Cal State Northridge Matadors, 99-64. Bell and Lorne Jackson each had 13 points for the Waves against the Matadors.
The Waves’ next home game is Saturday, January 3, against Western Oregon.