Bell Brings Strength to Pepperdine Basketball

Keion Bell is bigger, stronger and faster. The 6-foot-3-inch, 200-pound junior guard has spent countless hours in the weight room and on the court, strengthening his body and perfecting his game. Averaging 20.7 points per game this season, Bell is leading the West Coast Conference and ranked 22nd in the nation in scoring. And his impressive dunks wow the fans (take a look) at Firestone Fieldhouse.

“When he is in a good frame of mind, he just raises our level of play,” said Marty Wilson, Pepperdine’s associate head coach. “He sees things on both ends of the floor that we might not see as a staff. Just his ability to score when we have our droughts or to get a big rebound when we need it on the defensive end is big for us.”

Bell has had a superb career at Pepperdine since arriving in 2008 from Pasadena High School. He has eclipsed the 1,000-point mark to join an elite group of Wave players. Bell is on pace to become the all-time leading scorer in the school’s history sometime next season. But all that matters to Bell is winning, and Wave victories have been hard to come by lately.

“We just need to continue to work hard and improve as a team,” Bell said. “I know that if Mychel Thompson, Lorne Jackson and I can hit our strides at the same time, it would be pretty dangerous for the rest of the league. We have the most athletic guards in the conference.”

He added, “We can beat teams in our conference and compete with the better ones. We just need to get it done.”

“Getting it done” began with an intense lifting regiment over the summer recommended by Pepperdine’s strength and conditioning coach Ryan Capretta. Bell gained 16 pounds of muscle through dedicated weight lifting and hundreds of daily pushups and pull-ups.

“I feel a lot stronger and I can take a lot more contact in the paint or on the perimeter,” Bell said.

Wilson said, “We know a lot of people throughout Southern California, and they were all saying, ‘we saw Keion working out here’ or ‘I saw Keion working out there.’ He’s everywhere working out. He takes great pride in working out and doing individual stuff to get himself better. Hopefully, it continues to carry over to our team.”

Also during the summer, Bell and his cousin DeMar DeRozan of the Toronto Raptors frequented the HAX gym in Hawthorne, playing pick-up basketball against various collegiate and professional players. Bell played in the prestigious collegiate summer league Say No Classic and joined teammate Lorne Jackson at the LeBron James camp at UCSD. He competed with the likes of collegiate standouts Kemba Walker (Connecticut), Derrick Williams (Arizona) and Chris Wright (Dayton).

Pepperdine head coach Tom Asbury moved Bell from the two-guard position to point guard in the off-season to help facilitate a struggling offense from last year. Bell enjoys his new role.

“I get a better feel for the ball and a flow for the game,” he said. “I can control the pace of the game. I have a better understanding when to score and when to distribute.”

And like most great athletes, Bell is always looking to improve his game.

“I’m happy, but a lot of things could be better," he said. "I need to be efficient every night. What separates the good players from the great players is being good every single night.”

He continued, “You can have a good game even if you aren’t doing well offensively. Getting rebounds, playing solid defense or getting your teammates involved is as important.”