Pepperdine University shot their men’s basketball team to the next level mid-April when they named Paul Westphal their new head coach. The former NBA coach, who headed the ’92 Phoenix Suns to the league finals, brings proven talent and winning experience to Waves basketball. And with that, he brings expectations.
Pepperdine has teetered on the cuff between Cinderella success and established preeminence the past few years, taking an invite to the NCAA tournament in 2000 and trips to the NIT in ’99 and ’01. Yet it remains in a limbo outside that field of marquee teams that includes the Waves’ colossal neighbors to the east, in Westwood and Troy.
That divide could diminish, at least in expectation, with the addition of the former USC baller and NBA all-star to the staff. In his initial press conference, Westphal noted that he thinks, “The pressures [at Pepperdine] are different than what you deal with in the NBA or at a college program that is consistently ranked nationally.” He thought that “was an attractive part of the job.”
Westphal is a “Southern California guy,” and is taking a job that affords him the “opportunity to live and work in an area [I] consider home,” he said.
Westphal, who now lives in Manhattan Beach, is fresh off a job in Seattle where he coached a Sonic team loaded with talent and expectation to a modest 76-71 record the past few years. He was fired a few games into this season, after getting off to a poor start (sub.500).
However, he has proven that he can come into an organization, step up to the line, at the highest level, and win. In his first season as head coach with the Phoenix Suns, he set an NBA record for wins by a rookie coach and took his team dangerously close to an NBA title.
The change from professional ball to the collegiate level, while it brings pressure and expectation, is, after all, a step down for the proven coach. In his press conference he laughingly acknowledged that Pepperdine doesn’t have a private jet to whisk the team off to away games. But he stressed the point that he has “never taken a job and viewed it as a springboard,” swatting away rumors before they could come up that he was taking the gig as a stepping stone toward his come-back tour in the league.
He went on to say that he hopes things go well in Malibu, and hopes he is at Pepperdine for “a long, long time.”
Explaining his choice to replace Jan Van Breda Kolff, who resigned as the Waves’ head coach April 8 to go on to St. Bonaventure, Pepperdine Athletic Director John Watson cited Westphal’s “solid basketball background, both as a coach and a player, and his ethical values” as the traits that attracted him most to the coach.
The 50-year-old Westphal started his coaching career at Southwestern Baptist Bible and Grand Canyon colleges in Phoenix before taking an assistantship with the Suns.
Westphal’s daughter, Victoria, is a recent graduate of Pepperdine and his son, Michael, played as a walk-on guard for the Waves basketball team this year.
As for basketball predictions, look for Pepperdine to exert as much pressure as they are under in 01-02. The Waves have traditionally been an energetic, athletic and aggressive team. “Pressing and up-tempo play” has been Westphal’s coaching forte. But he may have to do it all without the Waves’ most prolific scoring machine, shooting guard Brandon Armstrong, who has made himself available for the NBA draft in June. Armstrong has left himself a loophole that would allow him to retract that move up to a week before the draft and still enjoy his full senior year eligibility at Pepperdine.