Optimism Puts a Bounce in Their Step : USD: Secret’s out--Toreros are picked to win the West Coast Conference.

Good secrets are sometimes hard to keep, and little by little, this one is leaking out.

The University of San Diego should have an exceptional men’s basketball team this season.

OK, nearly every school says that, but this time the school is not doing the hyping.

With the season five days off, USD Coach Hank Egan has assembled a team picked by four national publications, and the West Coast Conference sports information directors, to win the WCC. Another publication tabbed Loyola Marymount first and USD second.

The magazine picks may not mean as much because they tend to concentrate on the bigger conferences, but the conference’s sports information directors have predicted the eventual WCC champion four years in a row.

Their criteria, along with projected talent, normally includes, experience, previous year’s record and newcomers.

In the experience category, none of the other seven WCC teams come close to USD. The Toreros have six seniors and six juniors. In fact, USD is the only school with upperclassmen making up more than 50% of the team.

As far as last year’s record, USD (16-12, 9-5) was third behind Loyola (26-6, 13-1) and Pepperdine (17-11, 10-4), but the Toreros were a much better team in the second half of the season. After a 3-7 start, its worst since becoming a Division I team in 1979-80, USD won 13 of its final 18 games and nine of its last 11. Furthermore, Loyola and Pepperdine, although still strong, each lost four starters.

With only two seniors gone from last year’s USD team, there aren’t a whole lot of newcomers, but they are certainly worth mentioning.

Michael Brown (6-feet-4) and Reed Watson (6-8) led Arizona’s Mesa Community College (32-3) to a No. 1 ranking in the final community college poll last year. Mesa also had the top-ranked scoring defense, allowing 60.8 points per game.

Brown, who attended high school in Wurzburg, Germany, averaged 13.9 points, 4.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists and was a National Junior College Athletic Assn. first-team selection.

“Mike Brown can play any one of the three perimeter positions, so he adds versatility to the lineup,” Egan said.

Watson, a former Arizona high school player of the year from Gilbert High, averaged 12.4 points, 5.2 rebounds and shot 60% from the field last year.

Egan likens Watson’s playing ability to another Mesa transfer, John Jerome, who led the Toreros in scoring last year with a school-record 19.3 points per game. “Reed Watson can play either the post or forward position,” Egan said. “(He) plays very well facing the basket. He’s very athletic.”

Brown and Watson also figure to be key players for the Toreros.

All the ingredients seem to be there, thus, the preseason optimism.

Egan, taking a bit more cautious approach, isn’t quite as positive, but he’s not about to argue either.

“I’m not going to mess with the preseason predictions,” Egan said. “They don’t mean diddly. They really don’t. They’re kind of fun for a lot of people, but not for coaches.

“We have a lot of people returning (12 lettermen, including three starters), and I think that’s our strength. Experience at this level is really important.”

Egan did add that USD has a chance, but he is refraining from the prediction business.

“One time I walked up in front of a group and said I thought we should win the league, and I really did,” he said of his 1986-87 team. “I told them, ‘Pound for pound, we had the best basketball team in the league.’ And we did. We won the league.

“But I think this year, we have a chance. And that’s the best way I can put it, because we don’t have that dominant inside player. We haven’t got a bail-out position,” Egan said. “So we’re going to have to play very, very tough. Offensively and defensively, we’re going to really have to be together every night in order to get the job done. We just can’t let up. We can’t have a bad night and pull it out. We’re not that kind of a team.

“I think we’re one of the teams that has a chance, a legitimate chance at the league.”

What kind of a team is USD then? What makes it click?

It doesn’t have “that monster in the middle” to which Egan referred, like Scott Thompson was in 1986-87 when the Toreros last won the WCC with a 13-1 record. Nor does it figure to have a consensus All-American at any other position.

No. This team’s strength is probably its lack of weaknesses. Conversely, its biggest weakness might be its lack of strengths.

It doesn’t have the big center--Dondi Bell, at 6-9, is the tallest player--but it plays the inside game well enough to win. It doesn’t have an abundance of pure shooters--Pat Holbert being an exception--but it manages to shoot well enough to win. Wayman Strickland, a junior point guard, may not be the next coming of Magic Johnson, or John Stockton for that matter, but he has improved tremendously since starting as a freshman and runs the floor--you guessed it--well enough to win.

Strickland and seniors Bell and Holbert came on strong last season and should be factors again in 1990-91, but Egan figures to use a regular rotation of eight or nine players.

Holbert (6-3) was the shooting star of the Toreros’ second-half resurgence last year. After playing sparingly early at point guard, he became a starter at the off-guard when Gylan Dottin broke his nose three games into WCC play. Gaining comfort and confidence, Holbert went on to average 17.0 points in WCC play and scored 27 in USD’s victory over San Francisco in the WCC Tournament.

He is one of only three honorable mention all-conference players returning this year, and there is only one first-team player back, Pepperdine’s Geoff Lear.

Strickland (6-2) started 27 games last year at the point and missed USD’s single-season assist record by two with 169. He also averaged 8.3 points and four rebounds per game and won the coaches’ award for most improved player.

“Maybe one of the guys that has made the biggest improvement in my 20 years of coaching is Wayman Strickland,” Egan said.

Bell broke out of an early season funk of getting into foul trouble and Egan’s doghouse and significantly increased production in the second half.

Said Egan, “All of a sudden, about midway through last year, Dondi Bell made two very distinct decisions. First of all, that basketball was very important to him, and secondly, that he had to change the way he played in order to incorporate his abilities within the team. Since then, we’ve had tremendous growth from him.”

Senior Anthony Thomas (6-4, 6.9 points per game) and junior Kelvin Woods (6-6, 9.4), two good inside scorers and rebounders, probably will split time at power forward. Thomas is a fierce competitor, a leader on the court and in practice. Woods is more the quiet type. They both have the ability to change the course of a contest.

Seniors Randy Thompson (6-7) and Keith Colvin (6-8) and redshirt sophomore Geoff Probst (5-11) will provide quality relieve time for the starters. And they will need it more than ever this year.

Egan says this team is more athletic, and it will run and press more than in past years. Two exhibition victories have proven that--120-92 over Athletes in Action and 87-58 over Australia’s Illawara Hawks.

“We’re a pretty balanced team,” Strickland said. “We’ve got a lot of guys who can do a lot of different things. Everybody’s been here a couple years, and we’re used to each other.”

Woods put it this way: “Our biggest key is our mystery,” he said.

“One night, we can have some guy score 30 points. The next night, somebody else could score 30. Another night, we may have eight or nine guys come out and score eight or nine points. That’s the mystery.

“The other team doesn’t know what to expect from us on any given night. We don’t have a man , per say, we have a team .”

USD BASKETBALL SCHEDULE

DATE OPPONENT TIME Nov. 27 at San Diego State 7:30 p.m. Nov. 29 at So. Utah State 6:30 p.m. Dec. 1 San Jose State 7:30 p.m. Dec. 4 Pomona-Pitzer 7:30 p.m. Dec. 7 at Indiana Classic 5 p.m. Dec. 8 at Indiana Classic TBA Dec. 10 at UC Santa Barbara 7:30 p.m. Dec. 14 at CS Northridge 7:30 p.m. Dec. 22 at Eastern Wash. 7:30 p.m. Dec. 29 Canisius 7:30 p.m. Dec. 31 Hofstra 7:30 p.m. Jan. 2 Colorado 7:30 p.m. Jan. 5 at Santa Clara 8 p.m. Jan. 11 at Pepperdine 7:30 p.m. Jan. 12 at Loyola Marymount 8 p.m. Jan. 17 St. Mary’s 7:30 p.m. Jan. 19 San Francisco 7:30 p.m. Jan. 24 at Portland 7:30 p.m. Jan. 26 at Gonzaga 7:30 p.m. Jan. 31 Gonzaga 7:30 p.m. Feb. 2 Portland 7:30 p.m. Feb. 6 Southern Utah State 7:30 p.m. Feb. 9 Santa Clara 7:30 p.m. Feb. 15 at San Francisco 7:30 p.m. Feb. 16 at St. Mary’s 7:30 p.m. Feb. 21 Loyola Marymount 7:30 p.m. Feb. 23 Pepperdine 7:30 p.m. Mar. 2-4 WCC Tournament TBA

Home games at USD Sports Center

All times Pacific.