West Coast Conference 2003-04 Season Recap
by Noah Godwin
Gonzaga became the first team since Pepperdine in 1992 to run the table in the West Coast Conference. The departures of Blake Stepp and Corey Violette have done little to get the Zag faithful down. Senior forward/center Ronnie Turiaf has continued his tradition of getting better every summer and is a candidate for the Wooden Award.
Do-it-all sophomore forward Adam Morrison spent his summer competing on the USA Young Men’s team with the likes of North Carolina’s Sean May and Indiana’s Bracey Wright. Morrison averaged eight points and two rebounds in 13 minutes a game. He shot sixty percent from the floor in helping Team USA win gold. Morrison said Kelvin Sampson’s grueling practices and love of two-a-days have him ready to fill a larger role for Head Coach Mark Few.
In San Francisco, exciting home games like Stanford and St. Joseph’s and the arrival of a new head coach in Jessie Evans have season tickets selling in numbers that promise crowds like the Dons haven’t seen since Bill Russell was roaming the paint. Evans joins San Francisco after seven seasons with Louisiana-Lafayette (132-81) and is coming off three consecutive twenty-win seasons. Evans spent nine years with Lute Olson at Arizona, including the 1997 national championship team.
The new coach got some welcome news this summer when the NCAA granted John Cox a sixth year of eligibility. Cox was an all-WCC performer in 02-03 before straining his MCL in the first game last season against Tennessee-Martin in the Guardian’s Classic. Cox averaged 19 points a game during his junior campaign.
Pepperdine was at the end of last season a team with a plethora of guards and limited big men. After the departure of starting freshmen point guard Shaun Davis and super-sub guard Terrance Johnson, the Waves now have more questions than answers in the backcourt. Davis never really gelled with the team and transferred to a junior college in San Diego. Johnson left the Waves for academic reasons after an exciting career with the Waves.
Pepperdine fans will not be able to quickly forget the early departure of one its team leaders. Johnson transferred to Cal-Baptist: Pepperdine hosts Cal-Baptist in a preseason game Nov. 9th.
One bright spot for the Waves this summer has been the play of freshman point guard Kingsley Costain for Canada’s under-20 team. Costain handled himself well on both ends of the court and wowed scouts with his ability to accelerate with the ball in transition. His Achilles’ heel, as with most young point guards, was too many turnovers. But that same scout pointed out that when you face Chris Paul, turnovers are going to happen.
Portland made big strides last season on the court to be more competitive in conference play. Then the Pilots became even more optimistic about the future when Oregon State big man Kevin Field decided to transfer to Portland. Field will sit out this season but will be a big (he’s 6-11, 275) part of the Pilots’ interior game in years to come.
Santa Clara returns one of the best backcourts in the conference in Kyle Bailey and Doron Perkins, both natives of Alaska. The Broncos had a long summer to think about how close they came to beating Gonzaga in the WCC Tournament. Turiaf’s tip-in basket and the subsequent Kyle Bailey miss allowed the Zags to survive the semifinal game 63-62.
The biggest news out of Santa Clara this summer was the sad yet appreciative induction of Pat Tillman into the Athletic Hall of Fame. Also joining Tillman in the hall this year was former Bronco star Kurt Rambis.
Loyola Marymount went 5-0 in its summer tour of Europe, but Damian Martin, still recovering from a broken wrist suffered last season, did not play in any of the five games. Martin was a WCC All-Freshman performer for the Lions last season.
The departure to Creighton by Brian Fish, the top assistant last season for Head Coach Brad Holland, created some shuffling in the coaching staff at San Diego. All of the other coaches and team managers received promotions to fill the vacated spots. The Toreros’ signing of Michael Shepherd, a 6-8, 225 power forward transferring from Odessa College in Texas bolstered a frontcourt already anchored by junior center Brice Vounang and junior forward Brandon Gay.
No news was good news this summer for St. Mary’s, a team returning all five starters from last season’s second-place team. Shooting guard Paul Marigney averaged over twenty points a game in conference play. E.J. Rowland takes pressure off of Marigney with solid point guard play, and Daniel Kicker provides the muscle up front for a team coaches picked to finish second in the conference. The Gaels received three first-place votes (the remaining five went to Gonzaga).
Noah Godwin is a Hoopville Staff writer living in California. This is his first article for Hoopville.
