Making Waves

Concealed in the long shadows of UCLA and USC, Pepperdine is proving the perfect workshop for Jan van Breda Kolff.

No glad-handing alumni pull him away from Xs and O’s to play 18 holes. No antsy administrators expect his team to pack 14,000 seats in a decaying arena. No reporters drive him into seclusion by chronicling and questioning his every move.

Van Breda Kolff, 48, endured all that for six years at Vanderbilt. What began as an appealing challenge at his alma mater eventually became suffocating.

Then humiliating.

Last February, he was told by Vanderbilt Athletic Director Todd Turner that the season would be his last. Turner scheduled a news conference for that evening and Van Breda Kolff went to practice. Stepping out of the gym two hours later, he was blinded by television cameras and blindsided by reporters, who had been tipped off.

He skipped the news conference and issued a written statement. So much for a dignified exit.

No wonder Van Breda Kolff found renewal at Pepperdine, a serene setting where sometimes the only sound is of waves breaking below the campus. His well-appointed faculty housing has an ocean view, and his wife, Betty, joins him for a quiet lunch nearly every day.

On the court, he has restored his reputation. Pepperdine (22-7) is the West Coast Conference champion for the first time since 1993 and is top-seeded in the conference tournament this weekend. Van Breda Kolff took Vanderbilt to the NCAA tournament only in 1997, but Pepperdine, with an estimated No. 44 RPI ranking, is on the verge of selection in his first season.

“My focus and energies from the time I wake up until I go to bed is on what we must do to be a better basketball team,” he said.

The son of former Laker coach Butch van Breda Kolff is an unabashed hoops wonk. His passion for teaching the game he played professionally for more than a decade remains strong.

At Pepperdine he found a team eager to learn.

The Waves were coming off a workmanlike 19-13 season under Lorenzo Romar, who departed for Saint Louis. Romar had employed a deliberate offense that revolved around senior guard Jelani Gardner.

Van Breda Kolff cast out the star system, cranked up the tempo and force-fed the team intricate, aggressive defenses and a wealth of shooting options. The players responded like starved dogs fed red meat.

“We could have dragged along and resisted change, but his system is so much fun, we all bought in real quick,” senior guard Tezale Archie said. “Every player wants to run the floor and get aggressive on defense. None of us had a problem with it because it’s an exciting style.”

This would be news to the folks in Nashville who stopped attending Vanderbilt games because the coach and team were considered bland. Van Breda Kolff, who was 104-81 with the Commodores--they had a 14-15 record last season--believed his talent wasn’t equal to that of Southeastern Conference foes, and he slowed the pace to stay close.

The best group of athletes in the WCC greeted him at Pepperdine. An adjustment was in order.

Center Nick Sheppard and forward Kelvin Gibbs were ordered to drop 20 pounds and get ready to run. They gladly obliged.

Tommie Prince, a senior forward who was WCC defender of the year last season, fit well into the faster style. So did Archie, perhaps the most improved player in the conference.

Guard Brandon Armstrong, who sat out last season under Prop. 48 rules, and sophomore reserve Craig Lewis provided three-point shooting as well as quickness. Key reserve forward David Lalazarian added intensity and fresh legs.

Van Breda Kolff implemented the matchup zone he used at Vanderbilt, but instead of it serving as a camouflage for lack of quickness, the defense has teeth. A variety of presses complement the zone.

“We get into the passing lanes, contest every shot and have five guys crashing the boards,” Archie said. “We use all kinds of traps and presses. We throw different looks at people all the time.”

Pepperdine averages 20 turnovers and 9.4 steals a game, best in the WCC. Opponents score an average of only 63 points.

“In the SEC, we had to be very creative and somewhat careful or we’d get run out of the gym,” said Chris Walker, Van Breda Kolff’s top assistant at Vanderbilt and Pepperdine. “Jan learned some things in the SEC. Now he’s got the athletes and we’ve created a system for them to flourish.”

Malibu has not made Van Breda Kolff soft. During games, he bounds frenetically along the sideline and his instructions easily resound through Firestone Fieldhouse, where attendance averages about 1,500.

“He’s a passionate coach,” Archie said. “He talks about getting a banner on the wall, something to leave behind here. If we get down or a ref calls a bad foul, Coach is running down the floor arguing for you. He jumps in the ref’s face. Knowing he is going to bat for you makes you want to break your back for him.”

It’s a tribute to Van Breda Kolff that every Pepperdine player has improved. There is a great deal of unity, fostered through a beach-house retreat and pickup softball games between players and coaches.

“It’s been a very satisfying year,” Van Breda Kolff said. “Everybody in different ways has exceeded what I thought they would do.”

Scoring is balanced. Only Armstrong averages in double figures at 14.1, but the four other starters, as well as Lalazarian and Lewis, average between 7.3 and 9.9 points.

“He’s a player’s coach and he got us believing in the system,” said Lalazarian, a junior from Tustin. “When he came here, I didn’t know anything about him. I was a big Laker fan growing up, but he and his dad were before my time. I’d never heard of him.”

Van Breda Kolff graduated from Palos Verdes High in 1970, a year after his father’s two-year tenure coaching the Lakers had ended. As a Vanderbilt senior in 1974, he was SEC player of the year, set school assist records and led the Commodores to a 23-5 record.

Two years in the ABA were followed by seven in the NBA, mostly with the New Jersey Nets. Van Breda Kolff spent 1984 and ’85 as a player-coach in Italy, landed his first college job as an assistant under Pete Carril at Princeton and became Cornell’s head coach in 1991.

His return to Vanderbilt in 1993 created excitement in Nashville. But his first team was considered underachieving, even though it went to the NIT final, and the Commodores were 13-15 the following season.

Van Breda Kolff recruited Ron Mercer but couldn’t get him past the Vanderbilt admissions office, which requires higher qualifying standards than the NCAA. Mercer landed at Kentucky, Van Breda Kolff resigned himself to second-tier talent and attendance waned.

“Mercer was one of five NCAA qualifiers who Vanderbilt wouldn’t let in school,” Van Breda Kolff said. “It became a political issue and it had a ripple effect that lasted. It wasn’t a level playing field.”

Vanderbilt poured $23 million into renovating Memorial Gym after last season and wanted a fresh start. Kevin Stallings, the new coach, began the season 8-0 with a team, led by 6-11 Dan Langhi, that van Breda Kolff believed would have been his best ever. The realities and rigors of the SEC set in, however, and the Commodores are 10-8 since the winning streak.

Meanwhile, Van Breda Kolff flourishes with the Waves. Everything considered a failing in Nashville is fine at the ‘Dine. Administrators already are restructuring his four-year contract.

Three Pepperdine coaches in the last 12 years--Jim Harrick, Tom Asbury and Romar--used Pepperdine as a springboard to more prominent programs. However, Van Breda Kolff isn’t riding the up escalator, he’s cooling his heels.

“It’s a good situation,” he said. “I’m comfortable with the mission of the school and the direction of the program. Who knows what the future holds? For now, I’m very happy.”

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LOCAL RECORDS

Pepperdine and Long Beach have the most victories of the local men’s basketball teams:

School: Record

Long Beach St.: 22-4

Pepperdine: 22-7

CS Northridge: 17-9

UCLA: 16-11

USC: 14-13

UC Irvine: 13-13

CS Fullerton: 8-18

Loyola Marymount: 2-25