LAS VEGAS >> Saint Mary’s knows it will still play for an unprecedented fourth straight year in the men’s NCAA Tournament, even after a disappointing 58-51 defeat to longtime rival Gonzaga in the West Coast Conference tournament championship game.

The Gaels’ place as an at-large entry into the field of 68 teams that will be unveiled on Selection Sunday is not in question.

But they also know Tuesday night at the Orleans Arena was a missed opportunity. The Gaels (28-5) had ambitions of winning the WCC tourney title for a second year a row, something they’ve never done.

After barreling through the WCC regular season with a 17-1 record, they were hoping to pull off a three-game season sweep of the Zags (25-8), which also is missing from their resume. By doing so, they would own a 5-1 record over the last two seasons against the WCC’s traditional kingpins.

There is only one appropriate response, according to senior center Mitchell Saxen, who scored a season-high 20 points to go with seven rebounds and two blocked shots.

“We kind of got to flush this one fast, get it out of our system,” Saxen said. “We need to face every day in practice with a focus that these are our biggest games of the year.

“I feel like every single night our group’s going to show up and we’re going to play frickin’ hard. That’ll keep you in a lot of games, but we’ve got to play better.”

Much better. The Gaels outrebounded the Zags 43-28 and held them nearly 30 points below their season average. They were sabotaged by a season-worst 18 turnovers and an 0-for-16 shooting night from the 3-point arc.

“We were atrocious offensively,” coach Randy Bennett said. “The biggest thing is you can’t have 18 turnovers against them. A lot of those turned into layups at the other end.”

Gonzaga outscored Saint Mary’s 20-3 in points off turnovers.

“The game probably got down to that statistic,” Bennett said. “If you hold Gonzaga to 58, you think you’d win, but we didn’t. They’re a good team. You can’t play like that and expect to win.”

Bennett couldn’t even digest the 0 for 16 on 3s, although Gonzaga was hardly better at 1 for 15. Yep, two teams ranked in the top 20 nationally by the NCAA’s NET computer combined to go 1 for 31 from deep in front of an ESPN audience.

It didn’t help that two Gaels starters — foul-plagued forward Paulius Murauskas and guard Jordan Ross — were scoreless on a combined 0-for-12 shooting. Freshman sharpshooter Mikey Lewis, the WCC Sixth Man of the Year, was 2 for 10 and missed all seven of his 3s.

Two-time WCC Player of the Year Augustas Marciulionis had 12 points, eight assists and five rebounds.