Preseason Prediction: Ninth Place

#9 Pepperdine Waves
2011-12 Record: 10-19 (4-12, 7th WCC) RPI: 272

2011-12 Recap:

First year coach Marty Wilson took over a struggling and stagnant Waves program that had failed to achieve a winning season since 2004-05. The Waves took a small step backwards in the win column, losing two more games than in the prior season. In their first game against a D-1 opponent Pepperdine helped make the case that the WCC was the best league out west with a victory over the Pac-12's Arizona State, 66-60 in Tempe, on November 15th. From there the Waves lost their two remaining contests with Pac-12 foes, at UCLA and vs. Washington State in Seattle. Despite their losing record against the Pac-12 the Waves entered WCC play one game above .500. Pepperdine convincingly beat San Francisco at home to open conference play but followed that up with an eight game losing streak. Their only other wins on the season came against the two teams that would finish below them in the standings, Santa Clara and Portland. The Waves swept the Broncos but split with the Pilots. In the WCC Tournament Pepperdine was dispatched by San Diego 54-76 in their first game. Four Waves went down with season ending injuries last season but three will return for this season.



Key Losses:

• Taylor Darby, Senior, Forward.
  Eighth Wave to start over 100 games in their career. Leading scorer last season with 12.3ppg. Second in rebounding with 6.1rpg.
• Corbin Moore, Senior, Center.
  Led team in rebounding with 8.6rpg which was good for second best in the WCC. Second in scoring on the team with 10.4ppg. All-WCC Honorable Mention.
• Joshua Lowrey, Junior, Guard.
  Transferred to Grand Canyon. Fourth leading scorer with 8.7ppg, second in assists with 3apg. Led team in minutes with 31.8mpg, sixth most in the WCC.

Along with those three major losses the Waves lose six non-starters.

Key Additions:

• Stacy Davis, Freshman, Forward.
  The 6'6'', 220 Davis comes from Fairfax HS in Laveen, AZ (a Phoenix suburb), where he earned all-state honors three times. Davis is a strong rebounder and with the Waves losing their two top rebounders Davis may find the starting line-up early. ESPN ranks him as the #74 power forward in his class.
• Malte Kramer, Junior, Forward.
  The 6'7'' German comes to Pepperdine via Cuesta College in San Luis Obispo. In his two years at Cuesta Kramer scored 1,092 points which puts him at fourth all time.

Positives:

• The return of Lorne Jackson.
  Jackson, who was an all-WCC honorable mention in his junior season, tore his ACL prior to the start of last season. Had he played last season he would have been the Waves' top returning scorer. The 6'2'' guard is back and looking to improve upon his career averages of 9.4 points and 2.4 assists per contest. Jackson will provide much needed experience to this youthful Waves squad.
• Marty Wilson knows his way around.
  While this is only Marty Wilson's second season leading the Waves he is far from being a new face in Malibu. Wilson played for the Waves from 1985-1989, stuck around (who wouldn't want to stick around in Malibu? I made a visit after the WCC media day event ended and that place is magnificent!) as an assistant coach until 1996. Wilson returned in 2008 as an associate head coach and took over the full time head coaching position last season. Despite all that experience it's not an easy task to take over a program that doesn't have many pieces in place. With a year at the helm under his belt Wilson should be able to start turning the Waves around.

Best Case Scenario:
The Waves make it thru their easy non-conference schedule losing only to the two Pac-12 teams they play (at Cal and hosting Washington State) with maybe one more loss on the road. The injury bug doesn't continue as an epidemic at Pepperdine. Lorne Jackson has another all-WCC season. In conference play the Waves best Santa Clara and Portland while picking up two or three wins against teams in the top two thirds of the conference. If those things happen the Waves could finish as high as sixth in the WCC, ahead of San Francisco, Santa Clara and Portland.


Negatives:

• Inexperience added to inexperience.
  Last season Pepperdine was an inexperienced team, and nine players from that team have left the program. By comparison 20 game winner San Francisco lost that many players this offseason but returns a decent core and added significantly more talented players than the Waves have. Due to that massive turnover the Waves have had to bring in another large group of first year players. Their only addition from the D-1 level, senior Brendan Lane from UCLA, requested to redshirt (which was granted) in order to get started on his post-graduate work. While the players who stuck around from last season will be more experienced, over half of the roster will be new. The gained experience is almost counteracted by the lack of chemistry.
• The WCC is getting better from top to bottom.
  In years past Pepperdine may have been able to handle such turnover and stay relatively stable in the standings. That is not the case anymore. The only teams that should take a serious step back this season are Saint Mary's, but the Waves have no chance of passing the Gaels in the standings anyways, and San Francisco, which is in the same personnell turnover boat as the Waves. The teams that finished below the Waves last season, Portland and Santa Clara, both return their core group of players. In the case of Santa Clara, the Broncos not only return their core from the group that went winless in WCC play, but their two best players both of whom missed either most of or all of the WCC season.

Worst Case Scenario:
The injury bug returns to Malibu and the Waves lose one or more players for extended periods of time or worse, the season. The Waves drop not only their games against big-six opponents but their road games as well, with only four home games in the non-conference, including one against Washington State, opportunities for an easy win will not come often for the Waves. In WCC play the teams that finished below the Waves last season improve as expected and at worst split their series with Pepperdine. The Waves don't manage a win against any team in the top two-thirds of the league. If those things happen the Waves will finish in ninth place and with no more than 5 wins on the season.


Thoughts on 2012-2013:
Unfortunately for Pepperdine Man Marty Wilson the season looks to be headed more towards the worst case scenario than the best case. His history with the university should keep his job safe for another year but this is a program that has been irrelevant for the better part of a decade and something needs to be done to change that.
The Waves play an exceptionally weak non-conference schedule outside of their two games against Pac-12 teams Cal and Washington State, and play only four of those games in Malibu. Fans will not get much of a chance to see wins at home this season as the teams that should provide the Waves the best chance for a victory come on the road (which in turn lowers that chance). The only exception is UC Riverside, which like the Waves, was picked to finish last in their conference's (Big West) coaches' poll.
Pepperdine opens WCC play with Gonzaga and then travels to Provo to face BYU seven days later. For a team picked to finish in the cellar it is brutal to have to start in the cellar, but that is the fate of the Waves this season, and it doesn't look as if they have the ability to do anything about that.
It's another year with an inexperienced team in Malibu, and another year that the Waves look to sit in the bottom third of the WCC. Fortunately for them, in the long term, the national profile of the WCC is skyrocketing along with the quality of basketball being played. As long as that continues the Waves should be able to attract better recruits. Until they can do that however, the Waves will flounder at the bottom as the rest of the league rises up.

(Editors Note: I will revisit each team's Preseason Prediction at the start of WCC play to recap, revise and repost them. It's hard to predict a team's season when they haven't played a game yet. Injuries, breakouts and disappearances can come out of nowhere. Hopefully my predictions for each team's place in the standings stay true, but hopefully each team does far better than I expect them to at this point.)