COLLEGE BASKETBALL: 1994-95 PREVIEW : Pepperdine Was Just Fine, but Tom Asbury Decides . . . : He’ll Take Manhattan

MANHATTAN, Kan. —  From his old office at Pepperdine, Tom Asbury could look out the sliding glass doors and see the Pacific Ocean’s waves lapping at the beach at Malibu. Now, on a raw, rain-bitten day outside his new digs at Kansas State, he can see his breath.

Welcome to winter. And welcome to the Big Eight Conference, where newcomer Asbury already has ticked off archrival Kansas by describing revered Allen Fieldhouse, basketball cathedral of the Jayhawks, as “an old dump.”

“The K-State people thought that was great,” says Asbury, who scored serious brownie points by sticking it to Kansas.

Had he said the same thing a few years ago about Gonzaga’s Martin Centre, nobody would have noticed. And even if someone had, nobody would have cared. That’s how it was--and still is--in Asbury’s old league.

But this is different. Asbury is different.

Driving around campus in his dealer-loaned BMW, Asbury can’t quit gushing about all the wonderful things at Kansas State. So proud is Asbury of the place, that you half expect him to hand out cigars.

“C’mon, I’ll give you the Cook’s tour,” he says, after pulling into his private space at Bramlage Coliseum, a mostly cozy 13,500-seat facility that is more than four times the size of Firestone Fieldhouse back at Pepperdine.

“See our bench?” he says. “I had it moved to the student side. Caused a big stir, but the students love it.”

No dummy, Asbury also had the visiting team’s bench moved a few feet from K-State’s students, legendary for standing the entire game.

“That’s why I did it,” he says, smiling, perhaps at the thought of some Russian lit major from Topeka yelling farm vulgarities at, say, Coach Eddie Sutton and the rest of the visiting Oklahoma State team.

Asbury, wearing sweatpants and a Kansas State sweatshirt, sticks his head inside the Wildcat locker room.

“Gonna get it redone and put the new logo on the wall,” says Asbury, who also redesigned the Wildcats’ road uniforms.

Up the stairs he goes, into the ritzy lounge overlooking the football field. “Nice, huh?” he says. “You can bring folks up here before the game and relax. And look at this. I think I’ve got the only key to this room.”

Asbury opens an unmarked door just outside the lounge. Inside is a smaller, more private room with a view, complete with all sorts of electronic components for watching the game. This is for the recruits’ visits. And although it isn’t Malibu, it will do.

Tour director Tom then drives back toward the middle of campus, to ancient Ahearn Field House, where the basketball offices are.

“Gonna spend about $100,000 to fix up everything in here,” he says. “New furniture, carpet, flooring.”

Amazing. The guy is effervescent. Then again, this isn’t the same Tom Asbury of a year ago. This is the newly inspired Tom Asbury.

*

After 15 years at Pepperdine--nine as an assistant, six as a head coach--Asbury found himself in a groove as deep as a ditch. He averaged nearly 21 victories in those six seasons, took the Waves to the NCAA tournament three times, the NIT twice and generally ruled the West Coast Conference. Plus, there are worse fates than taking Pacific Coast Highway to work.

Then Kansas State squeezed out the decent, but dreadfully dull Dana Altman. As that was going on, Iowa State was trying to find a nice way to ask Johnny Orr to retire.

None of that went unnoticed by Asbury, who had long since realized that Pepperdine’s drop-dead vistas didn’t mean much to the nation’s best recruits. If scenery were so important, Syracuse wouldn’t get one signed letter of intent. In fact, Asbury had concluded that the picture-postcard stuff didn’t mean that much to him, either.

“We had stopped looking at the beauty,” Asbury said. “We stopped looking at the view, at the beauty of Malibu. We never went to the beach. Anyway, I needed a bigger challenge and I wanted a better league. I just needed a change.”

And then fate and a friend stepped in.

Kansas State Athletic Director Max Urick first approached UCLA’s Jim Harrick about the Wildcat opening. Harrick wasn’t interested, but he knew Asbury would be.

So Urick contacted Asbury, who also was keeping an eye on the Iowa State situation. They met at the Final Four in Charlotte, after Asbury had dined with Lon Kruger, the former Kansas State star guard and coach who left Manhattan to rebuild Florida’s program.

Kruger, sort of the Richie Cunningham of coaches, didn’t say a word about the remoteness of Kansas State--it’s a two-hour drive from Kansas City--or living in the constant shadow of the Jayhawks. The way Kruger figured it, they weren’t going to move the campus and KU certainly wasn’t going to relocate out of state, so why bother with the negatives?

Instead, there was talk of Kansas State’s own rich basketball tradition, of 21 NCAA appearances--but only one in the round of eight in the last 17 years--of the fans’ passion for the program, of the facilities, of the commitment made by the school administration.

It was a nice chat, but Asbury still wasn’t convinced. Take a drive on Interstate 70 and you’ll know why.

There on I-70, as you pass the Lawrence exit, the sign reads:

University of Kansas

1988 NCAA National Champions

Home of Dr. James Naismith

Inventor of basketball

Pass the Manhattan exit and it says:

Kansas State University

1991 National Debate Champions

1993 National Debate Champions

“Yeah, I saw them,” Asbury said. “But not until after I had taken the job.”

That’s because Urick flew him in and out of Manhattan for the interviews. Not that it mattered. Urick said he could sense that Asbury was ready to make a move.

“I do know Tom had reached the point where he thought, ‘Maybe I ought to open my mind up a little bit and look for a change,’ ” Urick said. “And the timing was right.”

Actually, it was perfect, but not for the supposed obvious reason.

“A lot of people thought it was because of the personal tragedy we had,” Asbury said. “That wasn’t the case. It was just time for a change. It probably had been time for a change prior to that. There were other years when there was nothing available and other years where we figured we couldn’t move because of Stacey’s illness.”

Stacey, the older of Asbury’s two daughters, died Sept. 12, 1993. She was 22 and had long battled anorexia nervosa, an acute eating disorder.

Still, in what has to be considered one of his finest seasons as a coach, Asbury led the Waves to a WCC tournament championship, received an NCAA bid and nearly upset Michigan in the first round. But if it was his proudest season, it was also his most trying and emotional.

“Fifteen years in one place is too long,” he said. “We were fortunate to get out of there, to be able to have maintained a level of success where we hadn’t started on a downhill slide. When you look back at what you were able to do there, you think, ‘Geez, is this ever going to be able to be done again . . . under any sort of conditions?’ ”

So Asbury accepted Urick’s five-year deal. He thought about waiting out the Iowa State situation, but then decided Kansas State had more to offer. And nothing against Altman, he said, but following the legendary Orr at Iowa State would have been difficult, especially when the three senior starters graduate.

Of course, Asbury is in for his own long season. The Wildcats lost four seniors, including their top scorer (Askia Jones), top defender (Deryl Cunningham) and team leader (Anthony Beane). They have no inside game, no proven perimeter game and no chance in the Big Eight. Alabama breezed by them last week in the first round of the Preseason NIT.

“This wasn’t a good year for us play in the NIT,” Asbury said.

No kidding. His lineup at times is intramural-league small: 5 feet 10, 6-3, 6-4, 6-7 and 6-6.

“It makes me nervous to be looking down on what appears to be my two starting forwards,” said the 6-6 Asbury, who added that this year’s Pepperdine team could beat his Kansas State team.

“That’s a scary thought,” he said. “But if they had great players here, there wouldn’t be an opening.”

There also wouldn’t be the view. From Asbury’s new office he can see it clearly. There it is: a fresh start.