Waves Should Make a Splash in BYU Tourney

This weekend’s Brigham Young basketball tournament may look like a setup for Pepperdine, but it didn’t start out that way.

The Waves, who have won four straight games after a season-opening loss to Kansas, seem to be the only strong team in the tournament. But Pepperdine Coach Jim Harrick said his team didn’t try to get into a tournament against patsies.

“We schedule these things three or four years ahead of time, and when we arranged to play in this one, BYU still had (Danny) Ainge.” Harrick said.

He might have added that in addition to Ainge, now with the Boston Celtics, the Cougars had a veteran, winning team.

This season, BYU is off to a 1-4 start, and Coach Ladell Andersen has a young team that seems to be feeling the loss of Timo Saarelainen, who averaged 22 points a game, and veteran guard Chris Nikchevich. Saarelainen, the Western Athletic Conference scoring champion last season, has graduated, and Nikchevich, the former Encino Crespi High School star, is sitting out the season after transferring to Loyola Marymount.

In tonight’s opening pairings at Provo, Utah, Pepperdine will play Western Illinois (4-3), and BYU will play Cal State Long Beach (2-3), which lost last week to UCLA, 84-64, at Pauley Pavilion.