Head coach Katie Faulkner and her staff with the Pepperdine women’s basketball program were in their first season at Malibu at this time last year.  Every player on the current Waves’ team was somewhere else, every one of them a newcomer this season to the Pepperdine program.
 
Sophomore guard Elli Guiney and her teammates had no real idea what might happen this season.
 
“Honestly, there wasn’t a ton of expectations since it was all brand new,” said Guiney,” a transfer from UNLV. “They had a vision for the program and Coach Katie preaches that vision every day of what we’re trying to build and what we want to look like in March. It’s a people-driven, relationship-driven program that plays hard and executes and wins basketball games.”
 
That’s exactly what Pepperdine has done so far. The Waves are 7-2 — their best start through nine games in 25 years.
 
Faulkner is thrilled with her team’s start, not surprised but also not getting too far ahead of herself. March is still nearly three months away. She understands that the schedule is about to get more challenging, possibly starting Tuesday and Wednesday when the Waves host North Dakota State (8-2) and South Dakota (8-3) — both top-100 teams in the NET rankings — at the Malibu Classic.
 
Faulkner is seeing a lot that has her encouraged, including three road wins to match their total from all of last season.
 
“I’m not surprised that this culture is producing quote-unquote results, even though this isn’t at all the end point,” she said. “But you see what it looks like to be a value-driven culture. You see what it looks like to invest in people who care about the right things every day since summer. It’s starting to pay off. We’re learning lessons.”
 
The Waves reside at No. 126 in the NET rankings, a massive leap from 270 at the end of last season. They are tied for second in the conference in rebounding margin (plus-8.9) and third in both scoring (70.7 points) and assists (16.1). A year ago, Pepperdine was last in rebounding margin (minus-7.9), scoring (56.3) and assists (11.7).
 
No wonder Pepperdine Athletic director Tanner Gardner, who hired Faulkner, says with pride, “We’re ahead of schedule.”
 
One of two women’s teams in the country with no returning players, Faulkner reminded her assistants during recruiting last offseason that a key was to dig deep to discover how a prospect would respond when things got tough. Because she knew those moments were inevitable.
 
“When it’s hard, who are you?” she said. “When it’s tough, who are they going to be? Are they going to bail and be about themselves, or are they about each other? We definitely vet for that in the process.”
 
The Waves put themselves into the position of having to address that issue after losing 85-56 at Utah Valley in their third game of the season.
 
“We got crushed. I think we had like 31 turnovers,” said Faulkner, accurately recalling that statistical detail. “We went in the locker room and I was like, `we needed this. This is going to make us better.’ That was the test of character. And this group has responded with elite maturity and has grown from it. I don’t think you find that everywhere.”
 
Pepperdine, 5-1 since that loss at Utah Valley, is getting contributions from a range of players who didn’t meet one another until last summer. Eight of them showed up early, shared four dorm rooms and did everything together for weeks, laying the foundation for a relationship.
 
“It literally felt like summer camp. I think that kind of sped up the relationship-building process,” said Guiney, who leads the Waves in scoring at 14.2 points per game and also is producing 4.1 rebounds, 3.3 assists and shooting 42 percent from the 3-point arc. On a good UNLV team last season, the former two-time Arizona high school state champion played just 4.4 minutes per game as a freshman.
 
“Elli needs to play for 10 more years for me. She’s gold,” Faulkner said. “She’s a winner and she will outwork everyone. She will always put others first and be about the team. She wants to get it right. She’s clutch. She can do so many things on the floor and she’s only a sophomore. She’s a dream.”
 
The feeling is mutual, said Guiney, suggesting, “I’d run through a wall for that woman. She always pushing everyone to be better, but she’s also going support you.
 
Faulkner is equally effusive about 6-foot-1 junior forward Shorna Preston, a native of Australia who played on a Dodge City Community College team that reached the Junior College national semifinals last season. Preston had 20 points, 11 rebounds and three blocked shots in the Waves’ 80-72 win over CSU Los Angeles on Saturday and is averaging 10.7 points and a conference-leading 9.2 rebounds while shooting 51 percent from the field.
 
“She’s one of the smartest kids I’ve ever coached,” Faulkner said. “She’s unconventional, which was hard at first for me. When you watch her play, she doesn’t do everything by the book. But at the end of the day she has a double-double and they win because of her.”
 
Pepperdine is getting significant contributions as well from freshman guard Seleh Harmon (10.4 points, 44 percent on 3-pointers) and Meghan Fiso (9.2 points, 5.8 rebounds), a graduate transfer guard from San Diego State.
 
This season is also special because Faulkner is seven weeks away from her due date for delivering her third child.
 
“How much she cares about us, we’re excited for her and her own family since we’re kind of her makeshift kids in a way,” said Guiney, adding that she jokingly has suggested the baby girl should be named Ellison or Elli. “She has the same fired-up energy. She has not slowed down. Knowing her, I think she’s going to coach as long as possible. She might have a baby on the sidelines.”
 
“There’s always that possibility. I’m trying to avoid it,” Faulkner said.
 
In the meantime, the Waves will continue to work at their craft, fully aware their journey is just beginning. But with early success and a sense that the West Coast Conference race might be wide open, Guiney isn’t afraid to say she is beginning to develop expectations. Can a team picked by the coaches to finish 10th in a 12-team league compete for the upper division in the West Coast Conference?
 
“I don’t see why not,” Guiney said. “Right now, our mindset is every single day, practice or a game, trying to get better. We are not looking too far ahead. Once it comes time for conference, we want to compete. Who doesn’t? We are just trying to put ourselves in position every night to win games.”