than last time. Holding us under 100 will be essential. 🙂 USD is #90 on KenPom on defense. Pepperdine is #234. You can almost flip those numbers on offense. Can they do it? Maybe. But I wonder if USD is not naturally a more difficult matchup for us this season than Pepperdine is. I know they've given us trouble in the past. But that won't be an excuse. We have to move the ball well offensively. I think we'll be able to pull it out if we do, but I don't expect to win by 27. Also, I hope that since the Gonzaga game that we have figured out how to dig deeper on the defensive end and can draw from that. I still feel a little more comfortable with BYU winning a shootout then the opposite type of game, and Pepperdine doesn't have much of a choice there. They're much better offensively than they are on defense, but it's not enough to match what we can do. It's still basketball, so anything can happen. But this matchup this season I feel better about than the one with USD. I don't think Pepperdine has it in them to slow down our offense in the same way USD did.