He has simply been there at every crucial step of the way for the Long Beach State 49ers this season.

And when it mattered most, Casper Ware was at his best. The junior point guard stepped behind a screen about 23 feet out to can his fifth and final three-point shot of the game, giving Long Beach a 51-50 lead over Cal Poly SLO and putting them in the driver’s seat for good.

On the next 49er possession, senior guard Greg Plater nailed another three-pointer and Long Beach tightened up on defense to defeat the Mustangs by a final score of 61-55. The win clinched the 49ers’ first Big West Conference title since 2006-07. Long Beach will enter the Conference Tournament in a few weeks with the No. 1 overall seed, as the odds-on favorite to win the trophy and earn a bid to the NCAA Tournament. The Big Dance. By nearly all accounts, Ware will be named the conference Player of the Year when it’s said and done.

But none of that was on the players’ minds after the Thursday night win on their home floor. Or if it was, they weren’t showing it. Ware was at a loss for words as student fans rushed the court and celebrated, cheering the names of the players and going wild as each ascended a ladder to cut down the nets in celebration. Teammates created space for guard Corey Jackson to dance. Junior forward Eugene Phelps grabbed a water bucket and doused head coach Dan Monson.

Think of it as a release. Last year, the team saw their title hopes disappear with a late-season letdown and vowed to themselves that the same would not happen again.

Monson led a group that showed consistency, resilience and unrelenting focus. It didn’t hurt that conference favorite UC Santa Barbara seemed to fly off of the map. But in the end it was up to the 49ers and they took care of business, sending home a Mustangs team ranked No. 2 in the standings and No. 1 in team defense. And without a doubt, they did it together.

“It was how you would expect to win a conference championship,” Monson said over the roar of the storming crowd. “It’s going to be hard.”

Ware was hitting from all over the floor and it forced the stingy Cal Poly interior defense to spread out, exposing the lane for junior forward Larry Anderson to attack (he scored eight crucial points in the final minutes). Nursing a three-point lead with 0:58 to go, Anderson put back a Plater airball with the shot clock reading “00” that sent the Pyramid crowd rocking. It was almost an anticlimactic way to end a bruising game that saw 19 lead changes.

Ware finished with 25 points but it was the shooting of Plater, clutch rebounding of T.J. Robinson, cunning of Edis Dervisevic and excellent overall team defense that made the dream a reality.

“It’s a process, and every year we’re coming closer and closer,” Monson said. “This is a great thing for our program and school.”

Big things are expected yet from the program and the school, beginning with their fearless leader. Ware has shown the ability to adapt to whatever his team needs, leading them in assists and directing the flow of the offense but also showcasing a scoring attack so improved that no one saw this season’s outbreak coming. He has already made more three-pointers this season than in his first two years combined. Ware has proven to develop into the most rare of players in the Big West: An inside-out scoring force and a defensive menace. A complete player. The kind that can win you conference titles and more.

“Cas is in my mind the best player in this league right now. the most valuable to our team,” Monson said. “He was cramping up at the end and wanted no part of coming out of the game.”

Monson deserves plenty of credit himself, and not just for what has been accomplished thus far, but for what his team proved on the court on Thursday. Their strategy was to push the tempo as much as possible in an attempt to counter Cal Poly’s excellent defense. Ware and Anderson attacked the basket whenever they could so the Mustangs couldn’t set up on defense.

But when that didn’t work and Cal Poly forced the game to slow down into a half-court chess match, the 49ers adjusted and did not wilt. That wouldn’t have happened last season, and it proved that the coaching and personnel have begun to coexist as fans knew that they could. The 49ers will be incredibly difficult to stop in the conference tournament if they are able to change their style of basketball to suit the opponent.

I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? Long Beach hosts the aforementioned Santa Barbara this Saturday and then closes the season out at Riverside before making arrangements to headline the Honda Center. It’s a path that was written in the cards three years ago when Monson signed the incoming class of Eugene Phelps, Robinson, Anderson and of course Ware. On Thursday, we learned just what they are capable of.