It's like this: A select number of college basketball teams -- Duke, UCLA, Kansas, Michigan State, Arizona, Illinois, Florida ... you know the crowd -- recruit out of your backyard pool. Only so deep, right? Only so much space to hold the country's top 50 or so players. The elite programs dive in, look around and pluck from the water who they want.

The next group of schools, say those ranked anywhere from 15-40, recruit from an area the size of Lake Erie.

	Pat Douglass has turned a 1-26 program at UC Irvine into a 25-game winner last season.

The next group?

Ever heard of the Pacific Ocean?

"At our level, the evaluation of recruits is so important to your chance at being successful," said UC Irvine coach Pat Douglass. "It's basically about identifying a player the big programs don't want and developing them over the long road. We're not getting kids who are on the verge of being pros. You better have a solid staff, because this involves seeing a lot of kids and making judgments on long-term potential.

"It's not easy."

Still, they're getting it done at UCI and Utah State and other mid-majors out West.

They all have Gonzaga to thank, you know. The Zags should be on the Christmas card list of every mid-major from San Diego to San Francisco, from Logan, Utah to Moscow, Idaho.

This is what happens when a team out of the tiny West Coast Conference advances to three straight Sweet 16s, when the first-grader keeps beating up the third-grader each March. Gonzaga will still accept the Cinderella tag if it means another NCAA Tournament berth ... but everyone knows better by now.

"And it still took a very long time to reach the point they are at," says Douglass. "It didn't happen overnight. Gonzaga had one of the winningest programs out West the past 25 years, but not until the last three or four seasons has anyone outside the region noticed."

And now, others are trying to follow the lead.

You think West Coast basketball and you think UCLA and Stanford and Arizona and, yes, Gonzaga. But out where the majority of mid-majors dribble, where the gyms are a little smaller and the fan-base perhaps not as immense, several programs are on the verge of making a significant jump.

Of being -- how crazy might this have sounded five years ago? -- a poor man's Gonzaga.

Take the WCC. Pepperdine has enjoyed its NCAA Tournament moments, most recently beating Indiana in the first round two years ago, which happened to be Bob Knight's final game with the Hoosiers; Santa Clara, meanwhile, enjoyed a short run playing the role of giant killer (remember the upset of Arizona in 1993?) before Gonzaga.

Or the Big West. Utah State is 56-12 over the past two seasons and beat Ohio State in overtime before falling to UCLA in an East Regional last year; UCI won 25 games last season, four years after Douglass inherited a 1-26 team.

Or the Mountain West. New Mexico is good enough this year to reach the NCAAs for the first time since 1999; San Diego State should be one of the nation's most improved programs.

Or the WAC. Fresno State has Top 25 talent; Texas-El Paso last made the NCAA field in 1992. It could this season, along with perhaps Hawaii and/or Tulsa.

"(Mid-majors out West) are not going to go out and beat a Pac-10 team on a Top 50 recruit," says UC Santa Barbara coach Bob Williams, whose team is picked by some to outlast UCI, Long Beach State and Utah State for this year's Big West title. "That's just not going to happen. Gonzaga has reached a point where it can do that some, but not the rest of us.

"The thing you hope for -- and this is why UCI and Utah State has come on the last few years -- is that by the time your kids are seniors, they understand how to win. They have been in your system for four years and know how to compete. They know what it's all about."

Perception is so critical to the overall process. Several mid-majors have carved their own niche playing off Gonzaga's success. If they can do it, so can we.

Recruits listen. Many believe.

	Dimitri Jorssen and Utah State ended a nine-game NCAA Tournament losing streak with its upset of Ohio State this past March.

The hard part is not necessarily building tradition, but rather keeping it. With each passing Sweet 16 appearance, Gonzaga's reputation went from fluke to lucky to legitimate. But the Zags are the exception right now and perhaps will remain so for some time.

The best bet now, one UCI and Utah State and the rest all but accept, is to have a team that is at least in the mix for a post-season berth each season, that develops players and is considered a solid Division I-A program nationally.

That, every once in a while, when the stars are aligned and the tarot cards fall your way, the first-grader rules the playground for a day. If fortunate, for a few days.

"On paper, the material we have is not going to be as good as the high major programs," said 10-year Santa Clara coach Dick Davey. "But that doesn't mean you can't beat them in a one-and-out scenario like the NCAA Tournament. That doesn't mean we can't be getting to the second week of the tournament and putting some fear into the high seeds.

"Some programs are talent-based. Others are teaching-based. I think we have to be a little of both at our level."

Stew Morrill has that. The fourth-year coach at Utah State has guided the Aggies to consecutive NCAA Tournaments. He returns just one starter in senior guard Tony Brown and his team is picked -- depending on which poll you prefer -- anywhere from first to fourth in conference this season.

"We realize the last two years have been storybook and that the bar has been set extremely high," said Morrill. "Every year presents new challenges and this will not be any different. But that's the fun part about all this."

Having fun -- and winning -- as a mid-major out West.

It's a theme many are buying into.

Ed Graney of the San Diego Union-Tribune is a regular contributor to ESPN.com. He can be reached at ed.graney@uniontrib.com.