Playing in just one NCAA Tournament “wasn’t even on my radar,” said former Mark Morris and Lower Columbia basketball standout Mickey Polis.

“Coming out of high school, there was no way of dreaming this,” said Polis, a backup point guard for Portland State, which will embark on its second consecutive foray into March Madness when it jumps ball against Xavier in an East Region first-round game in Boise on Friday.

“Even going into (LCC) or coming out of LCC, I never thought that this opportunity would come about,” he added. “It really hasn’t sunk in yet. Last year, winning the conference championship, that hasn’t sunk in yet, either. I think it takes a couple years, five to 10, to really realize how special this time really is.”

The Vikings will leave the Stott Center at 2:15 p.m. today — “I hope we get a charter again,” Polis said — and touch up their game plan before taking on the Muskateers at 4:25 p.m.

The dream-like quality of it all hasn’t changed for Polis, but there are plenty of differences between this trip to the NCAA Tournament and the one last season, when Portland State won the Big Sky tournament to earn the school’s first-ever trip to the Big Dance.

The most significant may be the lucky No. 13 seed the Vikings landed after surviving a midseason lull and defending their Big Sky title.

Last year, PSU was a 16-seed and drew eventual champion Kansas, “a team with five or six future pros,” Polis noted.

A 16-seed has never defeated a 1-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

“It was a very daunting task,” Polis said. “I’m not saying Xavier (the East Region 4-seed) is a bad team. They are a very good team and have some highly-touted players. But no one had ever beaten a 1-seed. We were playing against history.

“We looked at a lot of those bracketology things, and people were picking us as a 15, maybe a 14. When you get a 13, of course you are stoked. We played two other 4-seeds this year (Gonzaga and Washington). We beat the Zags on their floor and we lost to UW, the Pac-10 champs, by one on their court.”

Seeding aside, the current Vikings crew won’t resemble the starry-eyed, happy-to-be-here gang that took on Kansas in 2008. Their Big Sky title run in ’08 made history, but it also “put a bull’s-eye on our chest” in ’09, said Polis, who recently earned an athletic scholarship that will cover the remainder of his academic tenure at PSU.

“We were the unanimous pick to win this year,” Polis added. “We have a different team. There was a little more pressure. We started out well, had a hiccup in the middle of conference and then we kind of bore down and pulled through. Half the battle in the next phase is just believing you can win.”

Junior forward Julius Thomas told The Oregonian he was thankful when he saw that the Vikes were a 13-seed.

“I think that’s a good spot for us and it gives us a good shot at victory,” he said. “And with the experience that we gained last year and this year, I’m pretty confident that we’re going to do well.”

“We’ll show up with our game faces on,” senior guard Jeremiah Dominguez told The Oregonian. “Last year, we were just happy to be there. I think we’re going to try to get a win this time.”

Polis was Dominguez’s backup last season. His minutes dropped this year as Dominguez continued his all-conference play, as ’07-’08 redshirt junior Dominic Waters assumed a prominent backcourt role, and as senior guard Andre Murray formed a three-man guard rotation for PSU head coach Ken Bone.

But Polis knew this was coming. He knew Waters, a former Western Athletic Conference Freshman of the Year at the University of Hawaii, would claim handsome minutes at the point once his redshirt season was over.

“I knew there would be a log-jam at point guard,” said Polis, who appeared in 18 games this season, down from 30 last year. “Jeremiah is a first-team all-conference player. Dom and Andrew are second team. It’s not like I’m playing behind slouches. We have really good talent. I think that Coach Bone knows that if something goes wrong, I’m there, I’m ready and I’ll be a steady hand for us.”

Xavier will challenge the Vikings with its superior height, he added, and rebounding will be at a premium.

“It should be a tough matchup for us, especially defensively,” Polis said. “We start a 5-foot-6 point guard (Dominguez). Hopefully, he can disrupt ’em a little bit. Not a lot of people play against guys that small. (Xavier) has long, athletic guys that get into you on defense, and they have a couple of real good talents on offense.

“I think we have a good shot, but it depends on how well we play,” he added. “We’re a good shooting team. If we can stay in the game, you never know what will happen at the end.”

As his playing days near an end, Polis said he is proud of earning a scholarship, which will help him finish his degree in economics in the summer. He has also been reflecting on the coaches who helped pave his journey to a pair of Big Dances.

“My dad coached me at the youth level, Coach (Bill) Bakamus coached me in high school and Coach (Jim) Roffler (at LCC),” said Polis. “I really want to thank them for helping me get through all of this, and for all that they’ve given me. I really do appreciate what they’ve done and what they do.”

Polis will have a vocal support system in Boise this week. His father, Mike Polis, traveled to Omaha for PSU’s tournament game against Kansas last year (an 85-61 Jayhawks victory), along with Mickey’s uncle, John, and the husband of Mickey’s cousin.

This time, Mom will be in the stands. Heidi Polis, Mickey’s younger brother and current sophomore point guard at Pacific Lutheran University, Tony, and a cousin will cheer for Polis and the Vikings as they look for an upset on Friday.

“I hope my mom doesn’t get nervous or anything like that,” Polis joked.