Pepperdine Hopes for Rerun : WCC tournament: The matchups are the same as last season, when the Waves prevailed.

A year has passed since the last West Coast Conference basketball tournament, but not much has changed.

Pepperdine is in the same position as last season, when it began the tournament as the conference champion and won the tournament title as well, despite the loss of standout guard Doug Christie to a knee injury in the first round.

When the all-conference team was announced Friday, seven of the 10 players were repeaters, and Pepperdine’s Tom Asbury and Christie again were honored as WCC coach and player of the year, respectively.

On top of that, all four of today’s first-round games at the University of Portland are repeats of last season’s openers.

“I think our guys are playing at a higher level than a year ago,” said Asbury, whose team won all 14 of its conference games.

The top-seeded Waves (21-6) face eighth-seeded Portland (10-17) at 2 p.m. today with a chance to win their 31st consecutive WCC game and tie the conference record set by the University of San Francisco from 1954-57. Overall, Pepperdine has a nine-game winning streak.

In other first-round games, fourth-seeded Gonzaga (18-9) meets fifth-seeded San Diego (14-13) at 11:30 a.m., second-seeded Santa Clara (13-14) plays seventh-seeded St. Mary’s (13-16) at 6 p.m. and third-seeded Loyola Marymount (15-12) faces sixth-seeded USF (12-15) at 8:30 p.m.

Although Pepperdine gained the respect of every WCC coach for the way it dominated the conference--winning the title by five games--nobody appears to be in awe of the Waves.

“There are no upsets in our league,” USF Coach Jim Brovelli said.

Loyola Coach Jay Hillock said: “I think Pepperdine is the clear-cut favorite and a very good college basketball team, but I think the numbers are tending to run against them.”

Even Portland’s Larry Steele, whose team finished last and has lost five consecutive games to the Waves, doesn’t seem to mind playing the favorite in the first round.

“It’s not a bad situation at all,” Steele said. “I think they are beatable. Basketball is a very fragile sport. If we get to the point where it’s the last four or five minutes and we’re still close, anything could happen.”

Asbury, though confident, is wary of having to play Portland, a big underdog, on its home court.

“It’s a terrible scenario,” he said. “But it’s something we’re confronted with. Having just played them, their personnel and system are pretty fresh in our minds.”

Pepperdine beat Portland last weekend in Malibu, 79-56.

Loyola hopes to avoid a repeat of last season’s tournament opener, when USF posted a 101-93 upset over the Lions. Forward Tim Owens scored a personal-best 45 points in that game, and he returns to lead a USF team that ended conference play by winning three of its last four games.

“USF might be the most athletic team in the league,” said Hillock, who expects a high-scoring, up-tempo game. “They might play the full-court game better than anyone in the league.”

WCC Notes

Also named to the all-conference team were Pepperdine forwards Geoff Lear and Dana Jones, Loyola guard Terrell Lowery, USF center Darryl Johnson, St. Mary’s center Eric Bamberger, Gonzaga center Jeff Brown and guard Jarrod Davis, Santa Clara center Ron Reis and San Diego forward Kelvin Woods. . . . Loyola has the best record in the WCC tournament, 7-2. Pepperdine is 8-3.