WAVES OF THE FUTURE : After Its Young Team Finished 22-9, Pepperdine Coach Tom Asbury Believes the Best Is Yet to Come

After Pepperdine lost to Seton Hall recently in the first round of the NCAA basketball tournament, Wave Coach Tom Asbury said his team had played “like we were glad to be here” early in the first half but “played like we wanted to win” late in the first half.

Against Seton Hall, Pepperdine fell behind by 17 points midway through the first half but cut the lead to two points with a 15-0 run that started in the first half and carried over into the second half. The Pirates still won handily, 71-51, eliminating the Waves from the tournament.

Nevertheless, Asbury and his young, inexperienced team achieved much this year, winning the West Coast Conference regular-season and tournament championships. The Waves, with a starting lineup composed entirely of underclassmen, finished 22-9 overall and surprised some people.

Pepperdine, which will lose only senior reserve center Rex Manu from this season’s team, will surprise no one next season. The 1991-92 Waves will be a marked team and won’t be able to afford any “glad-to-be-here” lapses.

“We accomplished a great deal,” said Asbury, who was named the NCAA District 15 coach of the year by Eastman Kodak. “I couldn’t have been more pleased with any team I’ve ever coached in 25 years.”

Pepperdine might have accomplished more against Seton Hall if junior off-guard Doug Christie, the WCC’s most valuable player, had been able to play. Christie was lost for the rest of the season when he tore cartilage in his right knee in the first game of the WCC tournament.

Yet, Asbury said, even Christie, who led the team with averages of 19.1 points, 4.8 assists and 2.2 steals, may not have been able to make up the 20-point difference against the Pirates.

Asbury said that he and his players had still learned a valuable lesson against Seton Hall: “When you are up against big-time competition, you’ve got to have all the horses in the barn.”

Pepperdine, whose 16-game winning streak this season was second in school history to the 17 in a row won by the 1951-52 team, should have a barn full of players next season.

The starting lineup will be back, including Christie, all-conference junior forward Geoff Lear, junior point guard Rick Welch, redshirt freshman center Derek Noether and small forward Dana Jones, the WCC freshman of the year.

Others returning are sophomore forward Steve Guild, redshirt freshman point guard Damin Lopez, junior center Damon Braly and freshman off-guards Steve Clover and Rodney Sanders.

Junior center Mark Georgeson, seriously injured in an automobile accident last year, did not play this season. Georgeson has another year of eligibility remaining but is not expected to play.

Junior forward Byron Jenson, a transfer from Texas San Antonio, will be eligible next season, and incoming freshmen are guard Derric Croft from Ferndale, Wash., and 6-8 LeRoi O’Brien, the center who led Westchester High School to the Los Angeles City 4-A championship and was named the City’s 4-A player of the year.

Asbury said that he is looking at front-line players at several junior colleges as possibilities to fill a couple of spots on the roster.

Christie, who was named to the All-District 15 team and who received honorable mention as an All-American from United Press International, is “progressing very well” in recuperating from his knee injury, Asbury said. “He is dead set to come back 100%.”

Lear, named All-WCC for the second consecutive season, had another strong year, averaging 18.5 points and a team-high 9.8 rebounds. He scored a career-high 32 points as the Waves, playing without the injured Christie, beat St. Mary’s, 71-68, in overtime in the final of the WCC tournament.

Christie did many good things this season--and some bad. Asbury once called him “the kind of guy who keeps both teams in the game.” He committed 113 turnovers this year as he adjusted to playing guard full time, and sometimes had a hard time getting going in the first halves of games.

But Asbury pointed out that this was Christie’s first year as a starter and that he was inexperienced. He did not play as a freshman because he had not met college entrance academic requirements. “He was not an experienced player at the start of this season,” he said, “but I think he’ll be much more steady next (season).”

He said that if Lear “starts next (season) like he finished this year, we’re really going to be a good basketball team. The last third of the season, he was the best player in the league probably,” except perhaps for Christie.

Asbury said that it is “crucial” that Noether “be much more of a factor next” season, avoiding a pattern of playing well at times and not so well at others.

After getting off to a slow start because of a hip injury, Jones seemed to gain confidence with every game. He shot a team-high 57.8%, was usually assigned to guard an opponent’s best scorer and averaged 10 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists. His scoring average should rise as he gets more comfortable in Pepperdine’s offense and develops an outside shot.

The 6-foot Welch and the 5-9 Lopez shared time at point guard this season, and both started after Christie was injured. Asbury said that the two may have been regarded as vulnerable because they are small.

“But they are very experienced players, and it’s not as difficult a situation if we pair them with (the 6-6 Christie at off-guard). We would all like to play bigger guys, but those guys are proven and experienced and did a great job for me.” The 6-3 Sanders, who didn’t play much behind Christie, may eventually be a point guard.

Asbury said that Guild, a good outside shooter, may have started few games but “was in a lot of them at the end. A lot of our success, you can credit to him.” Clover, another good outside shooter, also didn’t play much behind Christie, but he shot 50% from the field, including 44% from three-point range.

He said that Jenson “is going to vie for a starting spot. I have no idea where, but he is going to push everybody.”

The 6-9 Braly, who played in only three games, was sidelined in mid-December because of a stress fracture in a foot, but Asbury hopes he will be healthy next season. “You can’t have too many big guys,” he said, adding that Braly will be redshirted if he is unable to play next season.

Pepperdine made only 64.1% of its free throws this season, but Asbury said that the situation could improve next season if Welch, who shot 86.4% from the free-throw line, and Lopez, who shot 84.8%, are fouled more often. Welch made 19 of 22 free throws and Lopez, 28 of 33. Among those who shot free throws more often, Christie (143 for 187) was most accurate at 76.5%.

Asbury would rather discuss defense and rebounding, two of the team’s strengths this season.

Pepperdine held opponents to 43.3% accuracy on field goals, and its rebounding margin of 6.6 over opponents was good for 11th place in the nation in that category at the end of the regular season.

Asbury said that Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount and the University of San Diego should be contenders in the WCC race, and “we’re going to have to be focused and play hard and smart every night of the year.”

“It will be a big challenge to improve on what we did this year,” Asbury said, “but it’s not going to be easy because we’re going to be the focal point of many people’s schedules.”