For UC Santa Barbara, getting there was more than half the fun

For its first-round NCAA tournament game, UC Santa Barbara drew one of the top teams in the nation led by perhaps the best player in college basketball.

And the Gauchos couldn’t be happier.

When the Big West Conference champions board a plane this week for their first-round NCAA tournament matchup Friday against second-seeded Ohio State in Milwaukee, they won’t be biting their nails in anticipation of facing the Buckeyes and star player Evan Turner. They’ll be counting their blessings.

“They’re excited just to be in the tournament, to continue playing basketball and the whole NCAA experience,” Santa Barbara Coach Bob Williams said. “They’re thankful to be playing someone of that caliber, someone they watch on the tube every weekend.”

Santa Barbara, seeded No. 15 in the Midwest Regional, earned its NCAA berth Saturday by defeating Long Beach State in the Big West tournament title game. Afterward, Santa Barbara senior guard James Powell wore his emotions like the tattoo on his left arm that features a pair of dice and reads, “Against All Odds.”

Meeting with the media, Powell clutched the Big West championship trophy for several moments, his head bowed as if in prayer.

Then he did something his coach and teammates at Santa Barbara had never witnessed in public.

He cried.

The hard, unflinching expression he wore the last five years while playing for the Gauchos, the one he carried to the free-throw line in so many critical moments, was suddenly flushed away by a sense of pride and accomplishment that overwhelmed him.

A young reporter tried to lighten the atmosphere with a joke, but sophomore teammate James Nunnally grabbed a microphone and gave Powell a minute to compose himself.

“He has been here five years; worked his tail off,” Nunnally said. “He deserves everything he gets.”

Still awash with emotion, Powell spoke of past teammates at Santa Barbara — players such as Alex Harris, Chris Divine, Ivan Elliott and Cecil Brown, players who spent as much time in the gym as he did yet never won a conference title or played in the NCAA tournament.

“This feels good to do it for them,” Powell said. “Hopefully, they can probably live through us as much as possible. I’m still close with all those people so hopefully they’re feeling good for me about it, so they can try to have that experience that I wish they could’ve had as bad as I wanted it.”

Sitting to his right was a coach who knew all too well the difficulty of capturing a tournament title. Williams has been Santa Barbara’s coach for 12 seasons and only once before had his team qualified for the NCAA tournament, in 2002. Twice his teams had entered the Big West tournament seeded No. 1, only to be bounced in a semifinal.

Williams said he understood how important it was for Powell to accomplish his lifelong goal of advancing to the NCAA tournament.

“I love the fact that this win has touched him,” Williams said of the former Glendora High star. “There’s nothing more I’d want for him, or any of these guys, to be touched by that, because that’s what it’s about. It’s bigger than us. It’s about the team.”

In the Big West final against Long Beach, Powell broke the school record for three-pointers in a career with his 218th. The significance of that mark, compared to winning the conference title, was held up to a light by Williams.

“Ask him how that [record] feels compared to winning this thing,” Williams said. “Ask him how that feels compared to Al [Harris] and all those guys who busted their rear ends. . . . James, how much time did Al spend in the gym?”

Said Powell: “About 23 hours out of the day.”

Powell has followed the example set by players such as Harris. In turn, he has set a standard for his younger teammates. Orlando Johnson, a sophomore who transferred from Loyola Marymount after leading the Lions in scoring and rebounding during the 2007-08 season, has used a similar work ethic to take his game to another level.

He was named Big West player of the year after leading the conference in scoring. His 20-point effort against Long Beach keyed the victory.

“We worked so hard, nine months strong,” Johnson said. “Ever since the beginning of the summer, we had one goal and that was to get here and then make the tournament.”

The tall order of facing Ohio State? That could wait for another day.

sports@latimes.com