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Provo • Where has that been all season?

That was the biggest question for coach Dave Rose's wildly inconsistent BYU team late Saturday night after the Cougars shocked the college basketball world with a 79-71 win over No. 1-ranked Gonzaga.

Freshman guard TJ Haws partially answered that query, acknowledging that the Cougars have no trouble getting up for the mighty Bulldogs, but slip a bit against the lesser-accomplished teams on their schedule.

"It shows we gotta come in and treat [every game] like this game, and treat it like it is a huge game," Haws said after scoring 17 points, albeit on 6-for-15 shooting. "This conference is a tough conference. There are good teams that are capable of knocking down big shots and capable of getting going a little bit. We have to come out each game ready to go."

Maybe if they were all played at McCarthey Athletic Center, where inexplicably the Cougars have won three straight, all while losing the last three matchups at home to Gonzaga.

"We've talked about [not being ready to play] a lot," BYU coach Dave Rose said. "[We] talk about how it is going to be a team that is going to drive you nuts at times, and a team that is going to do some exciting and special things, and have really big nights."

Few nights have been bigger for the BYU basketball program than Saturday's.

The come-from-behind win ruined the Zags' perfect regular season, might have cost the West Coast Conference champions a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and showed the rest of the country that Gonzaga (29-1) is beatable, even at home.

What did it do for the Cougars from a postseason perspective?

Aside from restoring the confidence that was lost in that 70-57 home loss to Saint Mary's and perhaps re-energizing the fan base, not much.

BYU (21-10, 12-6) finished alone in third place in the West Coast Conference by two games over Santa Clara and San Francisco, which tied for fourth, but four games behind Saint Mary's and five behind the Zags.

The Cougars will face sixth-place Loyola Marymount (15-14, 8-10) in a WCC Tournament quarterfinal on Saturday at 2 p.m. MST at Orleans Arena in Las Vegas. The Lions are relatively hot, having defeated Pacific 67-66 Saturday in Los Angeles for their third straight win.

It was the team's 13th game decided in the final 10 seconds, and LMU is 6-7 in those games. The Lions are 4-3 in one-point games.

"Beating the No. 1 team in the nation on the road the last weekend of the season is good for a lot of reasons," Rose said. "Probably the most important thing is, with this team, it gives us confidence going into the postseason, with what is ahead of us. … I am happy for our guys. I think they will be really excited next week going into practice, and we look forward to this tournament."

Having lost to Utah Valley, San Diego and Pepperdine, the Cougars weren't even close to an NCAA Tournament at-large bid, and probably still aren't. However, they have to be a lock for the NIT, because their RPI rose from 89 to 68 and their KenPom.com rating went from 78 to 70. The Cougars are 5-6 against top-100 RPI teams.

BYU now has four wins over Gonzaga in the last four seasons; the rest of the WCC is 4-66 in that stretch against the Zags.

"I don't think a lot of teams in our conference believe 100 percent that they are going to come in [to Gonzaga] and get an upset," said BYU's Eric Mika, who scored 29 points on 10-for-14 shooting and grabbed 11 rebounds. "All week, we were saying, 'hey, no matter where we've been, no matter what we've done this season, we are sticking together. We are going to have a game plan and we are going to believe we can go in there and do something special,' and that's what we did."

Will it continue, or will the Cougars revert back to their inconsistent ways?

"It is not easy to do, especially for a team that has gone through as much as we've gone through, and for as young as we are," Mika said. "But we keep believing, we keep fighting, we keep getting better and we came up big tonight. We are excited, but this isn't the end. We have to keep going."

Twitter: @drewjay —

No. 3 BYU vs. No. 6 Loyola Marymount

P West Coast Conference quarterfinal

At Orleans Arena, Las Vegas

Tipoff • 2 p.m. Saturday, MST

TV • ROOT Sports Rocky Mountain, BYUtv