BUFFALO (3/20/04) - Someone had to stand up for the high seeds. On a day when a No. 1 and a No. 2 fell, the top-seeded Hawks stood tall. Gutty baskets by Jameer Nelson and Dwayne Jones late in the second half allowed Saint Joseph's (29-1) to fight off No. 8 Texas Tech (23-11), 70-65, Saturday evening at HSBC Arena to earn the program's first trip To the Sweet 16 since 1997.

Nelson, facing the prospect of playing his last game as a Hawk, drained a clutch 3-pointer with 2:33 left, then calmly converted both ends of a 1-and-1 at the 1:15 mark to stretch Saint Joseph's lead to six points.

After Texas Tech's Andre Emmett hit a free throw and then sank a layup To make the score 68-65, Nelson walked the ball up the floor and stood alone just inside halfcourt as the Hawks cleared out the offensive zone. He allowed the shot clock to wind down to about 10 seconds, then passed cross-court to Delonte West. West penetrated into the lane and shoveled the ball to Jones, who laid it in with just 13.4 seconds remaining in the game.

The Red Raiders' Jarrius Jackson missed a short jumper, and Nelson tipped the rebound all the way to the other end of the floor. The clock ran out, and the Hawks' celebration began. They will face Wake Forest, a narrow winner over Manhattan, next Thursday at Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J.

"To have been associated with these guys has been an honor, becauseevery day they compete," head coach Phil Martelli said. "They give maximum effort, and that's the first locker room this year where we've had this joyous celebration. And they deserve it, because we're going to the Sweet 16."

Nelson led the Hawks with 24 points. Saint Joseph's also got 15 points on 7-of-13 shooting out of West, who also added 8 assists, and 14 points from Pat Carroll, who displayed a nice touch from the arc, hitting 4-of-7 from 3-point range.

"As a leader of the team and one of the captains, the guys look at me to take the big shots and make the big plays," Nelson said. "The game got tight, and they fouled me. I just tried to do what I can out there. I didn't want it to be my last game. I tried to show my toughness."

Down by 9 midway through the first half and stung by too many easy Tech baskets inside, Martelli called a timeout and urged his team to get back to "guarding every possession and taking it personal." Dave Mallon sank a 3-pointer, the Hawks picked up their defensive intensity, and Saint Joseph's tore off an amazing 24-2 run that put them up by 13 with 4:08 to go.

West was unconscious during the run, scoring 11 points. Though the Red Raiders stopped the bleeding with an 8-0 to end the half, the damage had been done, and the Hawks never trailed again.

"The offensive threat was all Delonte," said Nelson. "He got rolling. One of the things we try to do is create offense from our defense, but that started our defense up. The roles were reversed."

The second half saw a much slower tempo, with most of the game being played in the halfcourt. The Hawks got in the penalty early, and Texas Tech used free throws to knot the game at 60 with 5:09 remaining. It was the game's first tie since the 15:52 mark of the first half.

But the Hawks answered every Red Raider punch with a blow of their own, and Carroll knocked down a trey to give Saint Joseph's a lead it would never relinquish. The junior guard's missed three in overtime was the Hawks' final shot in an opening-round loss last year, but he didn't see Saturday's game as any kind of redemption.

"I had a bigger man guarding me," Carroll said. "When the bigger guy was guarding me, he kind of stepped off me a little bit. I felt like I had some open space and put it up. Last year wasn't going through my mind at all. This game, I just didn't want my season to end."

Texas Tech coach Bob Knight, who told Martelli beforehand that the Hawks were good for the game of college basketball, lamented the first-half run that saw the Red Raiders fall from a 9-point lead to a 13-point deficit.

"We had such a disparity in play in about a 5- or 6-minute period in the first half that really took away an awfully good start that we made," Knight said. "We were kind of scratching from that point in to get back in it. We did get back in it, and had our chances down the wire, which is what we hoped to have. The disparity in that 5- or 6-minute period in the first half was the ball game for all intents and purposes. I told Phil that theirs is a team that, although we were working hard to prepare for them, I really enjoy watching play."

"We made our run. They made their run," Emmett said. "They got a little more out of their run, and from them on, it was pretty much even. It was a tough team, and we knew they were going to be scrappy."

In the Hawks' lone loss of the season, to Xavier in the Atlantic 10 Tournament, they fell behind early and never came close to recovering.

Martelli praised his entire squad for keeping their composure Saturday. "We're not a two-man team. We're not just a backcourt," he said. "This is a team. Every time we took a punch, we were willing to punch back. We all had to punch back, or we wouldn't be sitting here as a winner."