Close early-season road losses to #19 SDSU and #42 UCLA.
But, Pepperdine had a terrible pre-Christmas stretch where they lost to CSU-Northridge, UC Santa Barbara, and CSU-Bakersfield over like 10 days. Then, they had a great stretch where they beat BYU, USF and SMC. Then, a horrible finish to the regular season with consecutive losses to Santa Clara, SMC, and LMU.
SMC was destroyed by #19 SDSU and #55 Memphis. The Gaels lucked out by only playing 10 conference games (almost half of which were Gonzaga and BYU) and not having to face LMU, SCU, USF or Pacific a second time.