It’s not the type of game Saint Mary’s University men’s basketball coach Mark Lovelace will be using as a teaching tool for one of his upcoming summer basketball camps.

In fact, he might want to consider loaning the tape of Wednesday’s game against Gustavus out to the local high school football camp.

After all, with a combined 47 fouls and 40 turnovers, the Gusties’ 64-52 MIAC win over SMU more closely resembled a football game, rather than a basketball game.

“It was a physical game, but that wasn’t the difference in the game,” said Lovelace. “The problem was, we played scared in the first half — we played like the team that got beat by 35 by Gustavus last year.

“I thought in the second half, we played much harder, we weren’t so concerned with who we were playing, and we just tried to play our game.”

The Gusties (15-2 MIAC, 17-5 overall) jumped out to a commanding 37-20 halftime advantage, despite the fact that the Cardinals shot 58 percent from the field (7-for-12) and 85 percent from the free throw line (6-for-7).

The second half however, was more of an offensive struggle — for both teams.

SMU made just 11 of 29 field goals (38 percent), but they were just 1-for-6 from beyond the 3-point line. And Gustavus was no better, shooting 24 percent from the field — making just 5 of 21 attempts. The difference, however, was from the line, where GAC went 16-for-27, while SMU was just 9 of 13.

“You can’t put a team like Gustavus on the line that often and expect to win,” said Lovelace, whose team was whistled for 29 fouls, including 19 in the second half. “Do I think we can play better than we did? No question. But I also think we got a lot out of that game — things we can hopefully carry over into (today’s game vs.) Augsburg.”