Gonzaga vs Pepperdine Prediction 2/15/25 College Basketball Picks Today

The Pepperdine Waves and the Gonzaga Bulldogs meet Saturday in college basketball action from McCarthey Athletic Center. Here’s a Gonzaga vs Pepperdine prediction. We will look at this from a betting perspective and determine the best Gonzaga vs Pepperdine pick.

Pepperdine Waves Betting Preview

The Waves really only have one solid stretch of games in the books so far this year. Otherwise it’s been a struggle in the win column. Pepperdine opened up on a 1-5 run with a win over Western Illinois followed by losses to UC San Diego, UC Irvine, UNLV, Northwestern and Cal State Fullerton. A 5-2 run came next with losses to Weber State and Long Beach State mixed among wins versus New Mexico State, Life Pacific, Grambling, Northern Arizona and UC Davis. The Waves would go 1-6 in their next seven with a lone win over Pacific among losses to Santa Clara, Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s, San Francisco, Saint Mary’s again and Oregon State. Following two wins over Pacific and San Diego, the Waves fell to Portland Washington State and LMU in the next three, giving the team a 9-16 overall run through 25 games.

In their Thursday matchup with San Diego, the Waves were up 44-39 at the break then scored another 44 points from there during an 88-81 win. Stefan Todorovic led the way on 24 points with five rebounds in the victory.

Gonzaga Bulldogs Betting Preview

Over on the Gonzaga side, they’ve got a couple of spotty runs in the books so far but overall they’re not doing too badly all things considered. The Bulldogs opened on a 7-3 run with losses to West Virginia, Kentucky and UConn. The wins came versus Baylor, Arizona State, UMass Lowell, San Diego State, Long Beach State, Indiana and Davidson in that time. A 7-1 run came next with a loss to UCLA amid wins over Nicholls, Bucknell, Pepperdine, Portland, Loyola Marymount, San Diego and Washington State. After losses to Oregon State and Santa Clara, Gonzaga hit a 4-1 run with a lone loss to Saint Mary’s. The wins otherwise in that time came courtesy of Portland, Oregon State, Loyola Marymount and Pacific in succession, giving the Bulldogs an 18-7 record across their first 25 outings of the season.

Matched up against San Francisco on Thursday, Gonzaga went into halftime with a 38-38 tie on their hands. The Bulldogs got it going in the second with a 50-39 run and took the eventual win 88-77, though. Leading the team in scoring with double doubles were Graham Ike (18 points; 13 rebounds; one steal) and Ryan Nembhard (18 points; 12 assists; two rebounds). Ben Gregg added 11 points with two assists. Tops off the bench were Braden Huff (two assists) and Michael Ajayi (10 rebounds), each with 12 points in the victory.

Why the Gonzaga Bulldogs will win

• Gonzaga has won 88 of its last 92 night games at McCarthey Athletic Center.
• Pepperdine has lost 41 of its last 50 night games against the West Coast Conference.
• Gonzaga has won the first half in 56 of its last 60 night games at McCarthey Athletic Center.

Why the Pepperdine Waves will win

• The road team has won three of the last four games between Pepperdine and Gonzaga.
• Pepperdine has won the first half in five of its last six games against the West Coast Conference.

Gonzaga vs Pepperdine Prediction

I’ll stick with Gonzaga here, but the line’s too thick to mess with in reality. On Thursday the Bulldogs played a great second half against a talented San Francisco team and pulled off the double-digit win in the end. Gonzaga posted 52.3 percent shooting from the field with a 41-28 rebounding edge in that one. Still, the Bulldogs went a fairly tepid 28.6 percent (4-of-14) from 3-point range and missed seven of their 23 free throws (69.6 percent) so it wasn’t perfect. During each of their last five wins, Gonzaga has scored 73 or more points and they should notch a nice total on Saturday as well.

These teams last saw each other back on December 30 in an 89-82 road win for the Bulldogs. Gonzaga was a mixed bag in that one, but a hot start 50-32 in the first half helped propel the win. The Bulldogs hit 54.5 percent from the floor but just 2-of-15 (13.3 percent) from outside. The 13 turnovers for 16 Waves points didn’t help matters either. Gonzaga certainly has a few things to clean up in this home rematch, but the familiar environment should help minimize their mistakes.