Pepperdine’s Asbury sees a vastly different WCC

Tom Asbury is returning to a West Coast Conference very different from the one he left in 1994.

“There’s been a big shift in the conference, one we don’t like,” said Asbury, who won three WCC titles in six seasons as coach.

“St. Mary’s and Gonzaga are riding high right now. We just need to start whittling away.”

Pepperdine, 9-18 this season under Vance Walberg and interim Coach Eric Bridgeland, who will finish the year on the bench while Asbury hires a staff and begins recruiting, has had one winning season in the last five.

Asbury, 62, said he expects to sign a contract to coach at least three years with options for more and that he will groom a successor, though that will not be part of the contract.

Asbury called it “extremely likely” that would be Utah assistant Marty Wilson, a former Pepperdine player and assistant, but said no formal offer has been made.

Asbury has plenty of history at Pepperdine, but he is starting anew with these players, all of whom he said he hoped would stay.

“I hear he’s a good coach,” freshman Malcolm Thomas said. “I know personally, I never heard of him until now.”

Thomas was born in 1988, the year Asbury was hired for his first stint as Pepperdine coach.