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Giant Killer Pepperdine, under new coach Paul Westphal, beats UCLA and USC

John Wooden still thinks of Paul Westphal as the one that got
away. In 1968 Westphal was an acclaimed senior at Aviation High
in Redondo Beach, Calif., and Wooden was in his dynasty years at
UCLA. Despite Wooden's best recruiting efforts, Westphal chose
USC, for which he became a two-time All-America before playing
for 12 years in the NBA. "Coach Wooden told me, 'Never look back
once you make a decision,'" Westphal says. "I never have."

After spending seven years as a small-college coach and as an
assistant in the pros and five-plus seasons as head man of the
Phoenix Suns and the Seattle SuperSonics, Westphal, 51, is back
in Los Angeles as the first-year coach at Pepperdine, and he has
again proved to be a thorn in UCLA's side. On Nov. 28 the Waves
got their first win over the Bruins in 56 years with an 85-78
decision in Pauley Pavilion. Last Thursday they knocked off
Westphal's alma mater 78-77 on a banked-in three-pointer by
senior guard Craig Lewis with 2.5 seconds remaining. That win
revealed both Westphal's feistiness and his sense of humor: When
Trojans coach Henry Bibby called a fourth timeout before
Pepperdine's final possession with eight seconds left, Westphal
held up his clipboard toward the Southern Cal bench so Bibby
could see the play he'd drawn up.

Having lost three starters from last season, including 6'4"
junior Brandon Armstrong, the 23rd pick in the NBA draft by the
Houston Rockets, wins over such powerhouses were as unexpected
as the events that led to Westphal's hiring. In November 2000,
after the Sonics fired him 15 games into the season following a
highly publicized war of words with Gary Payton, Westphal
planned to take a year off from basketball. On April 8, however,
Pepperdine coach Jan van Breda Kolff quit to take a job closer
to his wife's family, at St. Bonaventure. Waves athletic
director John Watson approached Westphal's son, Mike, a junior
walk-on guard, to see if his dad would be interested in the job.
After Mike assured his father that he approved, Westphal signed
on. His team was 4-3 at week's end.

Westphal's two earlier college stops were at Phoenix's
Southwestern and Grand Canyon colleges, the second of which he
guided to the 1988 NAIA title. "You can make more corrective
decisions when you're coaching in college, because in the pros
you're at the mercy of the players' goodwill," he says. "The
basketball part is the same, though."

Indeed, when Lewis's shot was in the air last Thursday, Westphal
went through the same sort of emotional swirl as he did in June
1993, when Chicago Bulls guard John Paxson fired the
game-winning three-pointer to beat Westphal's Suns in Game 6 of
the NBA Finals. "I'm thinking, Wow, this might go in, and at the
same time I'm thinking, If it does go in, USC is going to hate
us," says Westphal. "It's amazing how much goes through your
mind in such a short period, but that's what makes basketball so
much fun."

--S.D.

COLOR PHOTO: MARK J. TERRILL/AP Guard Micah McKinney exults after the Waves' 85-78 win over UCLA.