LONG BEACH, Calif. - The CBS broadcast team made the Long Beach State men's basketball team and its coaches, along with a large gathering of friends, family members and boosters, wait almost 35 minutes Sunday afternoon.

Of course, that was nothing compared to the 12 years some of those same folks had waited between the program's NCAA tournament appearances.

But, finally, after the 16-team brackets for the Midwest, West and East had flashed across the screen and been briefly discussed by broadcasters Greg Gumbel, Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis during the network's NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday - without Long Beach State listed in one of those 24 first-round matchups on Thursday and Friday - those in the crowd in the Nugget on campus knew they didn't have to wait much longer.

Sure enough, scant seconds later, Gumbel said "and in South Region games played in Columbus, Ohio, on Thursday ..."

The reaction to what popped up on the screen drew a roar before Gumbel could read "No. 5 Tennessee vs. No. 12 Long Beach State".

The adrenalin overload that came with the team's 94-83 Big West Conference tournament victory over Cal Poly Saturday night in the Anaheim Convention - and the 49ers' first bid to the NCAA tournament since 1995 - was in no danger of easing off.

Long Beach State (24-7) has won 22 of it past 25 games.

"That (waiting to see where his team was heading and which opponent it was paired with in the first round) was a little more heart-wrenching than the Big West Tournament was," Long Beach coach Larry Reynolds said, addressing the gathering just minutes after the 49ers learned of their destination and opponent.

"But I think a No. 12 vs. a No. 5 is a pretty good seed for us and I like our opportunity to go to Columbus and play a great University of Tennessee team."

Largely in part because the Big West isn't considered among the upper tier of the 31 conferences that receive automatic bids to the tournament, those who project the tournament field on various Internet sites had projected the 49ers as a 15 seed the past week or so.

That went up to a 14 seed (with a projected game vs. a No. 3, Oregon, in a regional site in Spokane) on both the ESPN.com and Foxsports.com sites after the 49ers' victory over Cal Poly Saturday night.

Apparently, despite 18- (Southern California) and 30-point (UCLA) losses to the only teams they faced that are part of the 65-team field, the 49ers' dominance of the Big West and stretch of 22 wins in their past 25 games impressed the 10-member NCAA committee that assembled the field in an Indianapolis hotel over the past five days.

"I thought we might be a 14 or 15 seed," Big West Conference Player of the Year Aaron Nixon said.

"So we got a little more respect than I thought we would. That's a good thing for the whole conference."