They Made Wake Work

SACRAMENTO —  Even though Devin Montgomery led the way for the Waves with 18 points (and played all 40 minutes), the combination of Jimmy Miggins and Boomer Brazzle was working against whatever defense Wake Forest played. Miggins had 11 points and five rebounds and Brazzle had 15 points and five rebounds.

Throw in Glen McGowan, who came off the bench to score 12 points in just 15 minutes and you can see why Demon Deacon Coach Skip Prosser continued changing defenses to try to disrupt Pepperdine.

Miggins said the Waves took everything that Wake Forest threw at them. “They tried zones and pressuring up on our shooters and double teams and we finally got over the hump,” he said.

Brazzle said Pepperdine’s early problems that led to Wake Forest running off to leads of 9-0 and 17-4 were correctable. “We just came out a little tentative, but after that, we got in our groove,” he said. “They just made the big plays at the end.”

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Coach Paul Westphal, on 6-foot-11 senior center Cedric Suitt: “He blocks shots, he changes shots, he doesn’t have to score to help us.”

Suitt had only six points in 37 minutes, but he had nine rebounds and four blocked shots.

Suitt, the West Coast Conference defensive player of the year, had 92 blocked shots before this game and 92 points.

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Westphal said the shots that really hurt seemed to come from Wake Forest point guard Broderick Hicks. “He calmly dropped some threes on us that were really painful,” Westphal said.

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Mike Westphal, the coach’s son, played in the game and scored--something his father never had a chance to do in the NCAA tournament when he played at USC. When Paul Westphal played with the Trojans, only the conference champion advanced to the tournament and that spot seemed reserved for UCLA.... Pepperdine is 0-12 against Atlantic Coast Conference teams and 0-4 against the ACC in the NCAA tournament.