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Las Vegas • For the first quarter of Friday's West Coast Conference women's basketball quarterfinal game against Pepperdine, BYU played like it was still feeling the after-effects of last week's season-ending loss at Gonzaga.
So two of the best players in the league, Lexi Rydalch and Kalani Purcell, took over offensively, and the other Cougars stepped up defensively.
Top-seeded BYU held ninth-seeded Pepperdine to six points in the second quarter and eventually rolled to a 72-59 win at Orleans Arena. The Cougars improved to 25-5 and will meet fourth-seeded Santa Clara in a semifinal on Monday at 1 p.m. MST.
It's the fifth-straight year since joining the WCC in 2011-12 that BYU has advanced to the semifinals. The Cougars won the tournament titles in 2012 and 2015.
"I am really proud of these guys. We've had a fun year," BYU coach Jeff Judkins said. "Tonight wasn't the best that we've played, but as a team we've learned to play together and compete as a team. … I am really happy for them because we lost our last game, and it is tough to come back from a loss. Sometimes you get out of sync, but they really bounced back well."
Certainly, in the second quarter they did.
Pepperdine played without two of its three leading scorers — sisters Erica and Olivia Ogwumike — but still entered the quarter with the score knotted at 14-14. Then the Waves' shots stopped falling, and BYU heated up after missing nine shots.
"We came out with a more determined mindset to do the small things that we needed to do," Purcell said. "It started with our defense. We held them to six points, and we were able to get a little bit of a lead through our offense. And so yeah, I think it was the small things we decided to work on."
BYU took its 30-20 halftime lead and outscored the Waves 25-15 in the third quarter. BYU led by as many as 27 points early in the fourth quarter before Judkins starting substituting and Pepperdine finished on a 13-2 run.
Rydalch and Purcell spent the last four minutes or so on the bench, or their impressive final numbers would have been even more eye-popping.
Rydalch led all scorers with 28 points and also grabbed 12 rebounds; Purcell flirted with a triple-double — 19 points, 11 rebounds and eight assists — for about the 17th time this season, Judkins said.
"You gotta hand it to BYU. That's a heckuva team, very well-coached," said Pepperdine coach Ryan Weisenberg. "And they played hard from the get-go. They've got two of the best players, Lexi and Kalani, and we did our best to slow them down, and our best just wasn't good enough."
Kelsey Brockway led the Waves (7-24) with 12 points and eight rebounds, but Pepperdine shot just 41 percent, same as BYU, and committed 19 turnovers.
"We were getting good looks, we just couldn't hit them," Brockway said.
BYU's second-leading scorer this season, junior guard Makenzi Morrison Pulsipher, struggled a bit with her shooting — going 2 of 11 from the field and 1 of 6 from beyond the arc — but still had eight points, five rebounds and two assists. Sophomore Amanda Wayment, who Judkins has termed the "most pleasant surprise" on the team, added eight points off the bench on 4-of-5 shooting.
"I was pretty excited, but probably the most nervous and anxious I've been in a long time for a game," Pulsipher said. "Mostly just because it is the conference tournament and this is what we've been aiming for the whole season. So I definitely had those butterflies, and a ton of energy, ready to go, because we had a rough loss the week before and wanted to get back on track."
Thirteen offensive rebounds, which they turned into 17 second-chance points, also powered BYU. And senior Kylie Maeda ran the point effectively, scoring seven points and recording four assists with just two turnovers despite a lot of physical play early that went uncalled.
"I think going to Lexi and Kalani was definitely our way of attacking this team, and whatever it takes to win, that's really all that matters," Pulsipher said. "I had a few shots that didn't fall. … But I was happy that we were able to find another way to score."
It was the fourth double-double of the season for Rydalch, who also had a career-high five steals.
Twitter: @drewjay —
BYU 71, Pepperdine 59
R Kalani Purcell and Lexi Rydalch post double-doubles and the top-seeded Cougars rout ninth-seeded Pepperdine at Orleans Arena.
• Amanda Wayment adds eight points off the bench and BYU overcomes 41-percent shooting to win going away.
• The Cougars will meet fourth-seeded Santa Clara in a semifinal on Monday at 1 p.m. MST.