COLLEGE BASKETBALL: 1993-94 SEASON PREVIEW : Pepperdine Ready to Make Impact : West Coast Conference: Jones, WCC player of the year, and Lopez are among four returning starters.

Pepperdine can see the rationale.

Santa Clara’s success at the end of last season was hard to miss, especially a stunning victory over Arizona in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

So the Broncos have been listed atop several preseason West Coast Conference forecasts.

But the Waves have their own justification for optimism this season. Although Santa Clara defeated the Waves in the WCC tournament final last season, Pepperdine is still the only conference team that has:

--Advanced to postseason play three times in a row, including two trips to the NCAA tournament.

--Won 22 or more games in each of the last three seasons.

--Won the WCC regular-season title three consecutive seasons.

--Reached the conference tournament final three consecutive times, and won it twice.

Pepperdine also has four senior starters back from a team that finished 23-8 and lost to USC in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament, and has added a solid recruiting class.

So as the 1993-94 season gets under way, the prospects for the Waves have hardly crested. “We collectively have high expectations for ourselves,” Coach Tom Asbury said. “But we always have high expectations and I think we thrive on that kind of thinking.”

One reason for that kind of thinking is 6-foot-6 senior forward Dana Jones, who averaged 15.6 points and 9.1 rebounds last season and was chosen conference player of the year.

“Since he was conference player of the year, we have high expectations for him but no more than he has for himself,” Asbury said of Jones.

The Waves complement the inside play of Jones with the outside shooting of guard Damin Lopez, a 5-9 senior who averaged 14 points last season and is injury-free again after missing 10 conference games because of two broken bones in his left hand.

Lopez ranks among the all-time conference leaders in three-point baskets with 139 and three-point shooting percentage at 41.7.

“If he was 6-4 and 195, he’d be at Kentucky and I wouldn’t know him,” Asbury said. “In Damin, we have one of the premier three-point shooters in the country and we know that. Unfortunately, so does everyone else we play.”

The other starters returning are 6-3 point guard Bryan Parker, an adept passer and ballhandler, and center Derek Noether, a strong inside force at 6-8 and 230 pounds who averaged 11.7 points and 6.1 rebounds as a junior.

The only question is who will fill the other starting spot. Asbury said he would prefer to start junior forward LeRoi O’Brien, 6-7, a former City 4-A player of the year from Westchester High who has played sparingly the last two seasons, but might go with sophomore center Gavin Vanderputten, 6-11.

There is also a possibility that 6-7 freshman Bryan Hill, the City 3-A player of the year last season at Wilmington Banning High, will step in at forward. Forward Clark James, a 6-5 transfer from West Valley College in Saratoga, and Carl Hayden, a 6-3 freshman from Phoenix, will also play.

The biggest challenge for Asbury will be enduring the personal tragedy that has beset him in recent months. His oldest daughter died of complications caused by anorexia nervosa in September and his father died of pneumonia last Wednesday--the day of the team’s first exhibition game.

“I think with what’s happening off the court, it’s really brought us together,” Parker said. “We’ve always been a team that’s played like a family, and now everyone’s even closer because of this. It’s going to help our focus as the season goes along.”