Waves Have Sweet Tooth : Midwest Regional: With Christie back, Pepperdine hoping for some success this year. Memphis State is first.

Stronger and wiser than a year ago, Pepperdine hopes to use its experience in the NCAA basketball tournament to gain an edge against a talented but green opponent today.

The 11th-seeded Waves (24-6) face sixth-seeded Memphis State (20-10) at noon (PST) in the first round of the Midwest Regional here at the Bradley Center. The game will be televised live by Channel 2.

Pepperdine, which has won 12 consecutive games and 17 of its last 18 since a 79-73 overtime loss Jan. 2 at second-ranked Kansas, returns to the NCAA tournament after having lost to Seton Hall, 71-51, in the first round last season.

The Waves played that game without senior guard Doug Christie, the two-time West Coast Conference player of the year, who had suffered a knee injury in the WCC tournament.

“We played the first five or eight minutes like we were just excited about playing in the NCAA tournament,” Coach Tom Asbury said of the loss to Seton Hall. “The team learned about jitters and all the things that go with playing in an NCAA tournament game.”

Asbury is confident that the Waves’ NCAA experience, and a sound Christie, will make for an improved showing this season.

“We are hoping to pull off a surprise or two in Milwaukee this week,” he said.

The feeling is shared by Pepperdine forward Geoff Lear, a 6-foot-8 senior who will be asked to carry the load against a tall and physical Memphis State front line.

“We expect to reach Sweet 16,” Lear said. “We’ve got the team to do it. We just have to execute.”

Lear said that having Christie in the tournament will give Pepperdine more confidence, especially for younger players such as sophomore point guard Damin Lopez and sophomore forward Dana Jones. The 6-6 Christie leads the Waves in scoring with a 19.4-point average, in assists with 4.8, and in steals with two per game.

“For the younger guys, Doug is somebody else to look to,” said Lear, who averages 17.1 points and a team-leading 7.3 rebounds. “Now we have two go-to guys rather than one. They don’t have to force the ball into me.”

While Pepperdine looks for senior leadership from Christie and Lear, Memphis State relies on two first-year collegiate players. Forwards Anfernee Hardaway, a 6-7 sophomore, and David Vaughn, a 6-10 freshman, lead the Tigers in every major statistical category.

Combine that with the fact that Memphis State is making its first NCAA appearance since 1989, and it would appear that the Tigers may have experience problems.

But this is a team that paid its dues in the regular season.

Memphis State played one of the country’s more demanding schedules and posted four victories over nationally ranked teams, including No. 9 Arkansas. The Tigers were 7-7 against teams that qualified for the NCAA tournament and finished third in the Great Midwest Conference behind tournament qualifiers Cincinnati and DePaul.

In contrast, Pepperdine played only four teams in the NCAA field, losing to all of them. More than two-thirds of the Waves’ victories--17--were scored in the WCC, a conference that sent only the Waves to postseason play.

But those figures have not lulled Memphis State Coach Larry Finch into a false sense of security.

“You don’t win 17 out of 18 games without being a good team,” Finch said. “They have Christie. From all the talk I’ve heard, this young guy is a multitalented basketball player who will probably get taken in the first round of the NBA draft.

“We’re going to have to play hard and with a lot of emotion.”

Finch, whose team favors an up-tempo, pressing style, said he was unsure if he would match the versatile Hardaway against Christie. Hardaway sat out his freshman season because of Prop. 48 restrictions after a heralded prep career at Memphis’ Treadwell High, where he averaged 36.7 points and 10 rebounds as a senior.

“I don’t get into individual matchups,” Finch said. “I’m not worried about that. It all depends on the circumstances.”

Joining Hardaway and Vaughn in the Memphis State starting lineup are 6-7, 255-pound junior center Anthony Douglas and guards Tony Madlock, a 6-1 senior, and Billy Smith, a 6-5 junior. The first player off the bench is usually 6-7, 230-pound junior forward Kelvin Allen.

Asbury said Pepperdine is not concerned about gaining respect for the WCC or West Coast basketball. With a five-game losing streak in NCAA tournament first-round games, the Waves want to win strictly for themselves.

“The kids know how hard they’ve worked,” Asbury said. “I don’t how much they’ll look at (this game) as regional pride as much as for themselves. I think they’d like to go out in style.”