NCAA BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT : UC Santa Barbara Has Point to Prove : Maryland’s Williams Is at Center of Gauchos’ Message Tonight : SOUTHEAST REGIONAL AT CINCINNATI

West Coast basketball teams aren’t highly respected nationally. They’re mocked by ESPN’s Dick Vitale, and some of the region’s best high school players prefer to play for colleges with more visible and stronger programs in the East, Midwest and South.

Coach Jerry Pimm of UC Santa Barbara is, of course, aware of this condition and he’d like to do something about it.

If nothing else, he’d like to impress a recruit who got away that good basketball can be played in an area of sun and surf as well as in cold and snow.

That opportunity will be provided tonight at Riverfront Coliseum, where the Gauchos of the Pacific Coast Athletic Assn. make their first National Collegiate Athletic Assn. tournament appearance, playing Maryland in a first-round game of the Southeast Regional.

Brian Williams, Maryland’s starting center as a freshman, is a player Pimm coveted, as did nearly every other coach in the country. Williams went to St. Monica High School in Santa Monica.

“Everybody wanted him,” Pimm said. “He watched us play a number of times. And we watched him play 10 or 12 times. I saw him personally in practice and in games. In the end, it came down to that we weren’t big-time enough.”

Santa Barbara, with its 22-7 record, will be testing the big-time environment against Maryland (17-12) in a game beginning at 4:37 p.m., PST.

The Terrapins of the Atlantic Coast Conference were an also-ran, finishing fifth with a 6-8 conference record in the regular season. But they made a nice run in the ACC tournament, getting to the semifinals before being eliminated by North Carolina, 74-64.

There is, of course, a mystique about ACC teams, regardless of their place in the standings. It is considered the country’s premier basketball conference, even though the Big East has made inroads on that reputation.

Pimm reasons, however, that his team is capable of beating any other team, based on upsetting Nevada Las Vegas, twice, and North Carolina State, another ACC team.

“The hard part is over with, getting into the tournament,” he said. “I feel we’re playing as well as we’ve played all year. And, if we can get it going all at once, anything can happen.”

Pimm said that Maryland will have a size advantage up front with 6-foot 10-inch Williams, 6-9 Tony Nassemburg and 6-7 Derrick Lewis.

“Maryland likes to get the ball inside with sort of a triple-post offense,” Pimm said. “Those big guys can really play with their backs to the basket.”

Maryland has a 6-5 guard in Keith Gatlin, who teams with 6-1 Rudy Archer, a community college transfer.

“Archer was recruited by everyone, including Vegas and Ohio State,” Pimm said. “He’s a southpaw and a great penetrator.”

Pimm is satisfied with his team’s progress, especially the development of his inside players--6-6 sophomore Eric McArthur, 6-6 freshman Gary Gray, 6-8 sophomore Mike Doyle and 6-10 junior John Westbeld.

“Our inside players were unproven and inexperienced when we started the season,” Pimm said. “Now they have that season of experience and are playing pretty well.”

Guard Brian Shaw, 6-6 and the PCAA player of the year, is the team’s catalyst. He led the league in rebounds with an 8.8 average, and assists with 6.1, while averaging 13.3 points.

Carrick DeHart, who teams with Shaw in the backcourt, is in awe of Shaw: “I’ve never seen anyone like him,” he said. “He’s so versatile. He’s another Magic (Johnson).”

Stan Morrison, USC’s former basketball coach and currently Santa Barbara’s athletic director, said that even Laker General Manager Jerry West had been impressed by Shaw.

“He’s one of the best players I’ve seen all year, in the country,” Morrison said. “He’s the kind of multidimensional player that the Lakers are looking for.”

Pimm, who once turned down an offer to coach at USC, where he was a star guard in the late ‘50s, is content with his job and life style in Santa Barbara.

He says he wants to win, but not at all costs, and that basketball doesn’t consume his life.

Pimm has an apartment in Santa Barbara, but spends most of his leisure time on his 48-foot yacht, named My Sweet Love, that is moored in Santa Barbara harbor.

“I stay on the boat a lot because it’s quiet and comfortable,” he said.

Pimm coached for 22 years at the University of Utah, 9 of them as head coach. His teams there won three Western Athletic Conference championships and made five NCAA playoff appearances.

He is just completing his fifth season at Santa Barbara and, at 49, is seemingly a fixture there.

“Utah has great people, and it’s great basketball country,” Pimm said. “But it was a hard job, digging out of snow, making excuses to recruits that it usually doesn’t snow two feet in April.

“The winters were depressing there. You get to a certain age and you say, ‘Why do you have to deal with that if you don’t have to?’ That was a factor in my leaving, along with the reasoning that we had done everything we could with that program.”

That’s the message Pimm is delivering to Williams and future recruits and, if the Gauchos make a decent run in the tournament, he says that California high school stars may think twice about playing in the cold East and stay home where it’s warm.

Tournament Notes

If Santa Barbara beats Maryland tonight, it will most likely play Kentucky, the Southeastern Conference champion, Sunday in a second-round game. Matchups of other teams in the Southeast Regional today at Riverfront Coliseum: Villanova (21-12) vs. Arkansas (21-8); Illinois (22-9) vs. Texas San Antonio (22-8) and Kentucky (25-5) vs. Southern (24-6).