Dream Team: Pepperdine Cage Coach Up to His Neck in Talent : Basketball: Tom Asbury is not even sure who his starting five might be since he has eight or nine players who are battling for the positions.

In his second year as Pepperdine’s head basketball coach, Tom Asbury can sympathize with the old woman who lived in a shoe.

He has so many players that he’s not quite sure what to do.

“This is as deep a team as we’ve had in the 11 years I’ve been here,” said Asbury, who spent nine years as an assistant to Jim Harrick before Harrick became UCLA’s head coach.

The Waves are so deep that Asbury is contemplating using All-West Coast Conference seniors Tom Lewis and Dexter Howard at small forward and making sophomore Geoff Lear his top power forward.

He said at press day that he doesn’t know who his starters will be and may not have a starting five--but a first eight or nine. He said he told his players, “It’s not me who determines who starts, but you guys, which gets me off the hook.”

The competition at small forward doesn’t seem to be bothering Lewis or Howard, who were one-two in scoring for the 20-13 Waves last season. Lewis, who averaged 16.2 points a game, can also play off guard. Howard, who averaged 15.9, has also played power forward and center.

Both all-conference players said they first heard that they were competing for the same spot at press day. But Lewis said, “It’s not a problem for me.” Howard said that competing for playing time is nothing new to him and that he would just have to keep working on his game.

In any case, Lewis and Howard should see a lot of action, and, as Asbury said, “It’s not so much who starts, but who finishes.”

Asbury seems to think that Lear will be around at the finish of many games. He said that the 6-foot, 8-inch, 235-pound sophomore is “a guy who anybody in America would like to have.

“He’s real strong and physical” and played well against Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers and Connecticut’s Cliff Robinson last season, Asbury said. When he appeared to be overmatched as a freshman, “he had some of his best games,” he added.

Though the team is deep, injuries could change that picture, Asbury said. Both sophomore centers, University of Arizona transfer Mark Georgeson and Damon Braly, have a history of stress fractures in their feet.

He said that Georgeson, who won’t be eligible to play until Dec. 16 at Kansas, is operating at about 50% of his capacity after he had a third operation last February and that Braly has had “numerous foot and ankle problems.” Georgeson also hasn’t played in eight months, he cautioned.

Senior Shann Ferch, the top candidate to replace last year’s point guard, Marty Wilson, has twice had arthroscopic knee surgery. Asbury said that Ferch, the centers and others must “remain injury-free. If we do, we have a chance to be a good, solid team.”

Ferch, who made crucial three-point baskets against the University of San Diego and New Mexico State in the National Invitation Tournament, said last week that his knee feels fine.

Asbury said that Ferch will be “in a dogfight” with sophomore Rick Welch for the point guard spot. He said that “every time we put Welch in at a crucial time (last season) he did well.”

Ferch, he said, is a “good shooter, but I expect him to do a little bit more sharing of the ball and (provide) leadership. I want him to hit the open shot, but I (also) want him to hit the open man.”

A third point guard is freshman Damin Lopez, who was a prep star in Arizona. Asbury said that the 5-9 Lopez “looks a little bit like the guy who’s collecting the towels, but he has a chance to be the point guard of the future.” Lopez and two other freshmen, forward Derek Noether of Fresno and guard Clint Arnold of Sacramento, may redshirt this year.

Senior off guard Craig Davis “has always been good offensively, but now he has to step up and play some defense,” Asbury said. He noted that last year’s team held opponents to 45.4% in field goal shooting, the lowest average since the 1975-76 season, but that the team’s two best defensive players, point guard Wilson and center Casey Crawford, have completed their eligibility.

Asbury had nice things to say about two forwards who redshirted last season, freshman Steve Guild and junior Rex Manu and, especially, 6-6 sophomore guard-forward Doug Christie. Christie, a prep star in Seattle, did not practice or play last year because he did not meet Proposition 48 eligibility requirements.

Asbury said he had seen Christie in only three practices this season but that he has “a lot of talent. If there were someone to ballyhoo before playing, it would be him.”

Pepperdine’s schedule is tough, he said, and should prepare the team for West Coast Conference play. It includes road games at Kansas and North Carolina and tournaments where the competition includes Nebraska, Oregon and Oregon State, Boston University and Louisiana Tech.

Most observers have picked Loyola Marymount to win the WCC championship, and Asbury said that he agrees with most observers.

He said the Lions could probably win the conference with Gathers, the nation’s leading scorer and rebounder last season; star guard Bo Kimble “and three guys from intramurals.” But the Lions are all the more formidable because they also have such top players as guard Jeff Fryer and forward Per Stumer.

He said he thinks the Waves will be “a little bit more versatile offensively” than they were last year. “It will be a challenge to maintain what we did defensively and improve, upgrade offensively.”

Last season the Waves tied Loyola for third place in the WCC at 10-4. Pepperdine was 1-1 in the conference tournament and advanced to the National Invitation Tournament where the team defeated New Mexico State but lost to New Mexico in road games.

That performance did not follow the scenario that John Wooden had provided Asbury before the season. Asbury said that Wooden had advised him to “go out and win 13 or 14 games so you’ll have something to build on.” After the Waves won 20, he said, Wooden told him, “You didn’t listen to me.”

The Wizard of Westwood did not advise Asbury on what to do about the problem of providing enough playing time for members of what may be Pepperdine’s deepest squad in many years.

“If that’s a problem, it’s a nice problem to have,” Asbury said.

He’s right about that. He could be in the same fix as Mother Hubbard.