Wave of Emotion

Welcome to the preseason NIT, brought to you by folks who must have spent their childhoods mixing red and black ants in a jar purely for theater.

First-round pairings are made with attention to story lines and revenge motives, factors that fill seats and increase television ratings. Thus, Pepperdine opens at Indiana today.

So much for the Waves savoring their first NCAA tournament victory in 18 years. A distinctive quality of March Madness is that when an upstart such as Pepperdine upsets an establishment favorite such as Indiana, the opportunity for payback often takes a decade or so.

That’s the way Pepperdine had it figured, anyway. The Waves and Hoosiers occupy different orbits in vastly separated basketball galaxies. Before Pepperdine’s shockingly one-sided 77-57 first-round East Regional victory, the teams had met only once, at the 1978 Seawolf Classic in Anchorage, Alaska.

The chances of Pepperdine and Indiana colliding a third time were as remote as Bob Knight’s getting fired.

Lo and behold, Knight is writing his memoirs. And the scheming NIT bracket builders threw the ants into that suffocating jar known as Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind. ESPN will televise the theater.

“The NIT sits down with ESPN and thinks of intriguing matchups,” Pepperdine Coach Jan van Breda Kolff said. “Once I saw that Indiana was in the tournament, it didn’t surprise me that they paired us up.”

Not that the Waves mind, particularly.

“When the coaches sent me a schedule and I saw Indiana, my eyes lit up,” guard Craig Lewis said. “Their players and fans will remember what happened in March. But I don’t mind these challenges.”

At Indiana, revenge has become secondary to the specter of the Hoosiers breaking from the locker room without Knight for the first time in 30 years. All eyes will be on Mike Davis, a former assistant wearing an interim tag.

Knight was fired Sept. 10, three days after he’d allegedly grabbed and cursed a student who had addressed the coach only by his last name. (By contrast, Van Breda Kolff didn’t blink when players referred to him as “Jan van” during the NCAA tournament.)

The incident violated a zero-tolerance behavior policy Indiana imposed on Knight last spring, in the wake of allegations he had choked a former player several years ago.

Players threatened to transfer unless Davis was hired.

“I am not a coward. This is a big job, a great job,” Davis said. “I hear guys like Rick Pitino want this job. It’s my job to lose.

“I am prepared for this, and I am going to do what I am comfortable with, and do it my way. I am in charge of every detail now.”

Davis stepped up preseason conditioning and promised to let his players step on the accelerator. Knight’s signature man-to-man defense will remain, but the Hoosiers will be free to create on offense and crank up the tempo.

Of course, Pepperdine takes up-tempo to its extreme, like hot water to a boil. In his first season, Van Breda Kolff introduced a variety of zone presses and encouraged a run-and-gun mentality. The result was a 25-9 record and West Coast Conference championship.

Never was the style more effective than against the Hoosiers, who looked as helpless as WCC doormat Loyola Marymount. Pepperdine jumped to a 24-8 lead, held Indiana under 10 points for more than 10 minutes and stifled All-American guard A.J. Guyton, who had no field goals.

Guyton and fiery point guard Michael Lewis were seniors. Jared Jeffries, a 6-foot-9 freshman forward, might well replace Guyton’s 20 points a game. Finding a point guard is more problematic.

“We may not have one guy designated to bring the ball up the court,” Davis said.

Somebody had better do it well, or the Waves could rack up more than the 13 steals they had in the tournament game. Dane Fife, a junior who has yet to make much noise besides being Knight’s most vocal supporter among players, and sophomore Kyle Hornsby are the only experienced Hoosier guards.

Although not a ballhandler, Hornsby will be counted on for outside shooting. He was six for six and scored a career-high 15 points against Pepperdine.

“They have a lot of new players at guard, and that’s something we are going to take advantage of,” Pepperdine guard Brandon Armstrong said.

Indiana’s strength is inside, where senior center Kirk Haston is a physical, mobile presence and sophomore forward Jeffrey Newton is dangerous, although he has been slowed by a sore Achilles’ heel. Jeffries, by all accounts, is potentially lethal.

“Jeffries reminds me of a right-handed Lamar Odom,” Van Breda Kolff said. “He can handle the ball like a guard, he can post up or score off the dribble. He is an unusual player with tremendous poise for a freshman.

“But like any freshman, he will have games where he’ll struggle. We hope this is one of them.”

Pepperdine has two starters back, all-WCC picks Armstrong and Kelvin Gibbs. Armstrong was the Waves’ top scorer and Gibbs the top rebounder. They will be joined in the lineup by point guard Craig Lewis, forward David Lalazarian and 6-10 center Cedric Suitt, all key reserves last season.

The bench is stocked with four freshmen, sophomore forward Boomer Brazzle and transfers Derrick Anderson and Elan Buller.

“Indiana has a solid starting team, then there is a drop-off,” Van Breda Kolff said. “We will try to force the tempo and get into their bench. We will go deep into our bench and keep everybody fresh.”

Pepperdine’s differences are mostly cosmetic. Gone are the retro Afros that caused a stir in Buffalo, N.Y. And Van Breda Kolff has begun putting a dollop of hair cream on his bangs to keep them from falling onto his forehead.

What will get hairy is the atmosphere at Assembly Hall. Knight is gone, but hardly forgotten. Pepperdine handed the Hoosiers an embarrassing defeat in his last game.

That’s not forgotten.

“This will be a whole new level of hostility,” Armstrong said. “There will be a lot of red out there and a lot of hype because of what we did in the NCAA tournament.

“But we have a veteran team. Our game is the same as it was in March.”