Waves Have a Plan to Move Forward : Basketball: Former Westchester High player LeRoi O’Brien is starting to blossom in his sophomore season at Pepperdine.

A little more than a month ago, Pepperdine basketball Coach Tom Asbury said he was in a quandary about who would play power forward next season.

Asbury was so concerned that he started recruiting a player who could fill the position to be vacated by senior forward Byron Jenson.

But with the emergence of LeRoi O’Brien in the past month, Asbury has called off his search.

The 6-foot-7, 213-pound O’Brien, a former Westchester High player who was named 1991 City Section 4-A Division player of the year, had the best game of his career against the University of San Diego on Feb. 7. O’Brien, a 19-year-old sophomore, scored 14 points, had six rebounds and blocked three shots.

Those statistics are closer to what Asbury expected when he recruited O’Brien.

“I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say that I was a little disappointed in his progress until recently,” Asbury said. “I thought he had the potential, along with (forward) Dana Jones, to form one of the best front-line combinations that (the West Coast Conference) has ever had. Obviously, it hasn’t happened yet.”

What has been the problem?

O’Brien, who is averaging only 3.5 points and 1.7 rebounds in limited playing time, didn’t begin to play basketball competitively until he was a sophomore at Westchester.

“Before that I was just a homebody,” he said. “I watched TV and played video games.”

Westchester Coach Ed Azzam said O’Brien’s playing time was infrequent until his senior year.

“He’s got a tremendous amount of ability but he just hasn’t played a lot,” Azzam said. “He didn’t play much as a sophomore on the (junior varsity) or in his first year on the varsity and he hasn’t played too much at Pepperdine. It’s only one season that he really played a lot of minutes and that’s not enough to gain the necessary experience.”

As a senior, O’Brien averaged 22 points and 10.5 rebounds in the City playoffs to lead Westchester to its first-ever title.

Cal State Fullerton, Utah and New Mexico also recruited O’Brien, but he wanted to stay close to his mother, Althea.

“My father died when I was 13 and it’s just my mother and myself,” O’Brien said. “I just feel comfortable being able to come home and see her whenever I want. I feel more comfortable being close to home. My mother has supported me with all of my decisions and she’s always there for me.”

O’Brien said the biggest adjustment at Pepperdine has been in the classroom.

“It was difficult academically because you have a lot of free time in between classes and it’s hard to know at first what to do with it,” he said.

O’Brien said he struggled academically earlier this year.

“I think my coaches were a little disappointed with my grades in my first semester,” he said. “I fell down in my studies, but that’s not going to happen again. I just started off poorly and I don’t really have anyone to blame but myself. It really has a lot to do with time management and I’ve learned how to handle it better.”

O’Brien said he wasn’t as disappointed that he appeared in only 16 games and scored 23 points as a freshman.

“Last season, I didn’t have a problem with it because it was only my fourth year of playing basketball and they had guys like (Doug) Christie and (Geoff) Lear,” he said. “I figured I was still learning and I didn’t really worry about it because I realized my time would come.”

O’Brien’s time appears to be approaching. Asbury said there is already little doubt about O’Brien’s athleticism.

“He’s the best athlete we’ve had in the program in a long time,” Asbury said. “He’s by far the best athlete we have in the program right now.”

Asbury said O’Brien needs to improve is his intensity.

“He’s a great guy and a super athlete, but he still needs to have a little more killer instinct when he’s out on the court,” Asbury said. “I don’t think he’s ever going to be a headhunter type of player, but I think he can pick it up in that regard.”

Jones, an All-West Coast Conference player who was O’Brien’s roommate last summer, said he has made considerable progress since his freshman season.

“Just from watching him play, I can see that he’s improved a lot,” Jones said. “He stayed around and worked on his game over the summer and I think that work ethic is going to pay off for him.”

O’Brien plans to work hard in the off-season, much like he did between his junior and senior seasons at Westchester.

“I was practicing about eight hours a day, five or six days a week,” he said. “I think that led a lot to the improvement from my junior to my senior year. I didn’t really work on (my game) as much the last two summers. But now I know what I’m here for and this summer that’s all I intend to do.”