GARRETT WAIT
Sports Editor
I get the same question at this time every year: How does Pepperdine’s men’s basketball team look this season? The source is always different, be it friends, family, random Internet acquaintances, it doesn’t matter. They all want to know what Paul Westphal’s boys are capable of in the upcoming season.
Now, this puts some unwanted pressure on me to channel Nostradamus and come up with a coherent, sensible reply. And every year, I’ve said the same thing: We look pretty good, this could really be our year (as if I am somehow a part of the team). Guess what, I’ve been wrong three years running.
So this year, I’m going with a different approach: tempered reason. Obviously, this team is young. They will make mistakes. It’s inevitable that somewhere along the line they’ll fall flat on their face, like any team with a serious lack of experience. But I have a feeling this team knows to get right back up and continue swinging.
The coaching staff has had to answer a lot of incredibly difficult questions since Westphal took over five years ago. Why isn’t the team playing up to its talent level? Why don’t the players give full effort on defense all the time? Why does a veteran team still make rookie mistakes?
The list goes on, but the answer probably lies in the simple fact that for his first five years on the job, Westphal was coaching with a core of players he didn’t recruit. He was too busy trying to get his system to fit the players when other coaches had the right guys for the system.
I know, Roy Williams took a group of players he inherited to the National Championship last season, but nearly any coach can win a college game with an NBA team. North Carolina is the exception, not the rule.
Most coaches would much rather they had a team full of players they recruited specifically to fit their style of play than be forced to use players some other coach got to fit in a totally different scheme.
These days, Westphal has a group all his own. The old guard is out and a bunch of new faces are in the mix trying to take Pepperdine back to elite status.
This season may be a little rocky, sure. Pepperdine has one of the toughest out-of-conference schedules in the nation and, if the exhibition games are any indication, are starting a group so young they get carded buying anything harder than 2-percent milk.
However, the team showed something else in the exhibition games that hasn’t been seen around here in the past few seasons: heart. If you saw the game against Cal Baptist, you saw Willie Galick get hammered on a baseline drive and still have the wherewithal to acrobatically toss the ball over his head and in the basket. To me, that single play screamed that these guys are tough as nails and ready to take whatever comes at them.
We all know it’s the eve of the UConn game. We all know the Huskies are the most talented team to come into Firestone Fieldhouse, possibly ever. We all know we are expected to roll over for Jim Calhoun’s group of thieves as they waltz through Malibu on the way to the Maui Invitational. At least, that’s what we’re being told.
But this Pepperdine team looks meaner than in the past. I don’t know exactly what it is. Maybe it’s the tenacity the players showed on the boards against the two NAIA teams. Maybe it’s the new swagger these players have without a viable source. It’s a certain way they carry themselves that says this team can’t be beaten mentally like in the last few seasons.
Of course, we’ll still be underdogs tomorrow night, and rightfully so. The Huskies are loaded with talent and experience. They have a hall-of-fame coach and a legion of fans that plans on invading Malibu and turning it into Storrs West. But I think Pepperdine may have a trick or two up its sleeve.
The full-court press was used extensively against Cal Baptist, recalling the old Pressuredine days when the Waves would turn up the heat on opponents by creating turnovers and general havoc. If utilized properly, the press can send shivers down the spines of Husky fans, maybe even planting seeds of doubt in their minds, like they didn’t know this trip out to California would end up being such a nightmare.
Then again, Pepperdine could lose by 40. It won’t matter either way. This team has too much character to let one game make or break its season, which is why I think there’s a chance this team could surprise a lot of people along the way.
Screw tempered reason, this is our year.
11-17-2005
