THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: After that beatdown of the top seed, what's next for Zags?

Somebody explain how Saint Mary’s got the No. 1 seed, OK?

It had to be a joke.

The Gaels shouldn’t have had the top spot in the WCC tournament off their regular season body of work.

They shouldn’t have had it from walking through a weak non-conference schedule.

And if there was any doubt that the Gaels should NOT have been the top seed, Gonzaga made the point crystal clear Tuesday night in Las Vegas, handing Saint Mary’s a brutal 77-51 beating in the WCC title game.

It sounds crazy, but this curb-stomping was never as close as the final score.

Maybe being the No. 2 seed suited the Zags, who played this matchup as though it was personal — and yeah, that likely was the case.

Oh, and you probably know that history was made along the way, although it wasn’t exactly a shock.

Drew Timme needed just five points to pass Frank Burgess as Gonzaga’s all-time leading scorer, and Mr. Mustache got ‘em with ease.

The funny part, at least from the Zags’ side of things, is that Timme and most of the other starters spent the last several minutes laughing on the bench (although Timme DID score 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting from the floor).

It was that kind of whipping.

THE TRUTH is that Gonzaga should have swept Saint Mary’s this season.

The Gaels stole a game at home when Aidan Mahaney turned unconscious and threw in a banked 3-pointer to fuel what now has to be considered a true upset.

The Zags just hammered Saint Mary’s in the Kennel, and made it even worse in what was supposed to be a showdown in Vegas.

Mahaney was no factor, but you could say that about all of the Gaels, who struggled to get decent shots off against a Gonzaga defense that was so relentless, Anton Watson dove to corral a loose ball with four minutes left and the Zags up by a thousand.

“Our defense keyed everything,” Mark Few offered in a serious understatement. “We’ve stayed connected.”

Indeed.

The funny thing is that Saint Mary’s — despite lacking many quality wins this year — has been hanging its hat on defense.

The Gaels were ranked No. 5 in adjusted defensive efficiency in the latest Ken Pomeroy rankings, while Gonzaga was almost out of sight at No. 90.

It sure didn’t look that way in Vegas.

The Zags jumped on Saint Mary’s right from the jump, got in everyone’s face and did just enough offensively to lead 37-19 at the half.

If there was any worry that the Zags might let up, they binned that notion immediately after the break — running off to a 59-29 lead on a couple of free throws by Ben Gregg with 9:27 still to play.

The Zags shot 58 percent from the field and held Saint Mary’s to 33 — and that last number was even worse until garbage time near the end.

NOW THAT there’s no question about who belongs atop the WCC, well …

What next?

Gonzaga is likely to get a third seed in the NCAA tournament, and watching that defensive performance on Tuesday night, maybe those pundits who claim the Zags have tightened up on that end of the floor have a point.

For most of this season, the Zags looked vulnerable on defense — and that’s an honest assessment.

They don’t have a true rim protector, and the perimeter players had a tendency to get lost on screens.

The Zags basically just scored enough (they’re No. 1 in KenPom’s offensive ratings) to get past most everyone in the WCC, and they even hung a hundred on Alabama during a 100-90 victory down in Birmingham.

However …

Some quality teams just ran through the Zags as though they were what broadcaster Bill Raftery calls a “directional school.”

Texas and Purdue walloped the Zags, and so did Tennessee in an exhibition game.

They lost a one-pointer to Baylor by coughing up a seven-point lead with little over a minute to play.

There were stretches where you wondered if Gonzaga could stop anybody — a terrible tumble from the excellent defensive teams of the past several years.

And yet, little by little …

Few has pulled more energy and communication from his guys, and down the stretch they’ve looked a hell of a lot like a team that might be able to stuff a few folks in the Big Dance.

They’ll have time to work on everything during the extra week that the early WCC tournament provides its postseason players.

It might be a good idea to look at the Saint Mary’s tape over and over and over, and say …

“We’ve got to play even harder than that.”

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Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”