Pepperdine Needs to Grow Up Fast : Waves: Asbury has to replace four starters and one injured center. Lear and Christie are the key players.

Last season, Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury was up to his ears in experienced basketball players. This season the experience level has dropped to about the height of his ankle-length socks.

Gone are four of five starters: forwards Tom Lewis and Dexter Howard and guards Craig Davis and Shann Ferch. Gone with them are their combined averages of 57.6 points and 16.3 rebounds a game.

Two juniors--6-foot-8 power forward Geoff Lear, the only underclassman on the 1989-90 All-West Coast Conference team, and 6-6 off guard Doug Christie, a part-time starter last season--will carry much of the burden for the Waves. But the rest of the load will have to be borne by returning reserves, redshirt freshmen and freshmen.

“We’ve lost a lot of points,” Asbury said of the four graduates, adding that Pepperdine will also miss 6-10 junior center Mark Georgeson, a part-time starter in 1989-90 who will not play this season.

Georgeson, a transfer from Arizona, broke his pelvis in an automobile accident late last season and might not play again.

Asbury said it will take time to replace the missing firepower, and that there will be a lot of new faces in Wave uniforms this season.

“We could start as many as three freshmen, and we could play as many as five freshmen,” he said. “This could be the youngest, most inexperienced team we’ve had since I’ve been here.”

Asbury has been at Pepperdine for 11 years, nine as an assistant and the last two as head coach.

His custom is not to name a starting five but to have a starting rotation that includes seven or eight players. The three freshmen in this year’s rotation include 6-6 forward Dana Jones, guard Damin Lopez and 6-8 center-forward Derek Noether, both redshirts last season.

Jones, who played at North Hollywood High and last season was named the Los Angeles City 3-A player of the year, will probably share time at small forward with 6-6 sophomore Steve Guild.

Lopez, who played in four games with the Waves last season but redshirted after injuring his hand, is expected to split time at point guard with junior Rick Welch.

Noether and 6-8 senior Rex Manu will take over at center for Georgeson. Both are listed as forwards on the roster. Another center is 6-9 Damon Braly, a junior who hasn’t played much.

The two other freshmen are guards Rodney Sanders of Fairfax High and Steve Clover of Rolling Hills High. Byron Jenson, a 6-7 forward who transferred from Texas San Antonio, will redshirt this season.

The youngsters will have to grow up quickly if Pepperdine, which finished 17-11 overall and 10-4 in the WCC last season, is to challenge the University of San Diego and defending conference champion Loyola Marymount, regarded as the league’s top two teams.

Even if the newcomers demonstrate that they can play, Asbury will have to get strong seasons from veterans Lear and Christie.

At 240 pounds, Lear is about 10 pounds heavier and should throw his weight around even more than last year, when he averaged 13.8 points and 8.9 rebounds. He was second in rebounding in the WCC for all games to the late Hank Gathers of Loyola, who averaged 10.8.

Asbury said that Lear has a chance to be one of the dominating players in the league.

“He has practiced harder and more consistently than in his first two years,” Asbury said.

“He has been a little inconsistent. Now he’s got to step up and take more of a leadership role. He’s been more of a support type. Now he’s got to step up and do some different things.”

Christie did a lot of different things for the Waves last season, some of them well, some not so well.

He alternated at guard and forward, and, playing 24 minutes a game, averaged 8.9 points, 4.1 rebounds and four assists. He was a strong shot blocker, tying Lear for the conference lead at 34. His 112 assists led the Waves last season, but so did his 100 turnovers.

Asbury said that Christie, Washington’s AA player of the year as a senior at Seattle’s Rainier Beach High, was trying to do too many things last season.

“He’s going to turn the ball over, but he also makes some good things happen,” the coach said. “I don’t want to restrain him too much. I’d like to refine him, as opposed to restraining him.”

Pepperdine’s nonconference schedule includes games against Arizona, DePaul, Kansas, UCLA and UC Santa Barbara, and Asbury said that playing such strong teams is “a calculated risk.” He hopes that facing tough teams outside the conference will benefit the Waves in WCC play.

“We may take our lumps in the preseason,” he said. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

ROSTERS, SCHEDULE: C13