Optimistic Coaches Prepare for Encore

It was a full-coach press.

Thirteen college basketball coaches from San Luis Obispo to San Diego took turns at the podium Thursday at the Los Angeles Athletic Club. Several themes emerged.

Everybody has a hellacious schedule. Everybody is proud of their hard-working players. And every coach was in agreement that college hoops in Southern California has never been better.

Certainly, Bobby Braswell of Cal State Northridge and Jan van Breda Kolff of Pepperdine have done their part to make the last point valid.

Northridge was 20-10 last season, the team’s best record in Braswell’s four seasons. Pepperdine was even better, going 25-9, winning the West Coast Conference regular-season title and a first-round NCAA tournament game against Indiana.

Joined on the dais by five coaches from Big West Conference schools, Braswell said he is excited Northridge will join the conference next year. Then he took a parting shot at his present conference, which had no other coaches present.

“We’re looking forward to getting out of those [lousy] trips to Big Sky schools,” he said. “Nothing against Missoula, Mont., but I’d rather stay in California.”

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Pepperdine was good last season. Wait until this team takes the floor.

“When you include speed, athleticism and depth, this is the most talented team I’ve ever coached,” said van Breda Kolff, who spent six years at Vanderbilt and two at Cornell before coming to Pepperdine.

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Mark Hull, the leading scorer and rebounder among seven returners for UC Santa Barbara, will move from power forward to his more natural small forward position. Hull, a 6-7 sophomore from Hoover High, averaged 10.3 points and five rebounds last season.

Santa Barbara Coach Bob Williams expects a similar contribution from freshman guard-forward Branduinn Fullove, The Times’ Ventura County player of the year last season at Simi Valley High.

“Branduinn is used to winning,” Williams said. “He’s accustomed to it and that’s an attitude we need.”

The Gauchos (14-14 last season) also have two players from Santa Clara High. Sophomore guard B.J. Ward averaged 2.9 points as a reserve and guard Nick Jones is a redshirt freshman.

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Steve Aggers, a former Pepperdine assistant and longtime Newbury Park resident, will try to rebuild a Loyola Marymount program ranked next-to-last in Division I.

Aggers spent the last four seasons at Eastern Washington, where he did an admirable job attracting recruits to a frigid campus in tiny Cheney, Wash.

Eastern Washington was 29-19 the past three seasons in Big Sky Conference play and Aggers was the conference coach of the year in two of those seasons.

Only two players return and he will carry only 11 on the roster, including sophomore Kent Dennis, a former Cleveland High guard who transferred from West Virginia. Dennis averaged 3.7 points as a Mountaineer reserve last season.

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Three players from the region are among 50 candidates for the John R. Wooden Award All-American team.

Arizona guard Gilbert Arenas, a sophomore from Grant High, is one of five Wildcats among the candidates. Also listed are Stanford forward Jarron Collins, a senior from Harvard-Westlake, and Pepperdine junior guard Brandon Armstrong.