The Hawks left UD Arena a couple of hours later knowing that their top-ranked status would be short-lived.

Playing in its first game following a nine-day layoff, SJU came out flat and never recovered, falling to an intense and desperate Xavier squad, 87-67, in the quarterfinal round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament.

The loss dropped the Hawks' to 27-1. Xavier, acknowledged by many to be on the bubble and playing for its NCAA Tournament lives, improved to 21-10.

"I'm going to state the obvious," said Hawks head coach Phil Martelli. "The better team won today. I told the players that I'm disappointed in my own preparation. I didn't prepare them well enough mentally to face a team that was hungry and desperate."

The Musketeers turned the ball over 26 times, but overcame that with an eye-popping, tourney-record 71.1 percent shooting performance. On the defensive end, Xavier used a textbook, perfectly executed man-to-man defense to deny the Hawks the open looks to which they're accustomed. Saint Joseph's shot just 35.4 percent, including a dismal 9-of-33 from the arc, on the afternoon.

"We were able to get off to a great start," said Xavier head coach Thad Matta. "When you play a team as great as Saint Joseph's, you have to play great defense, and they have to miss some shots."

About midway through the second half, Martelli, desperate to close a gap that had ballooned to more than 30 points, switched to a five-guard lineup. The Hawks scrapped the entire way and managed to chisel the deficit down to 20, but it was too little, too late.

"We went down fighting," Hawks guard Jameer Nelson said. "We didn't go down scared. That's going to carry over to the next game. It's going to make us hungrier."

Martelli refused to pin the loss on the Hawks' long layoff, saying the team's three best practices of the year came just prior to Thursday's game. He noted that over the last two seasons, he could identify only two games in which the Hawks were truly beaten by their opponents, and both came at UD Arena -- a defeat last season to Dayton, and the loss to Xavier.

"It was not a physical thing," Martelli said. "If it were the layoff, you would have seen mental and physical errors. We lost to a better team today."

Nelson and Delonte West each scored 16 points, but needed 21 and 14 shots, respectively, to do it. Tyrone Barley chipped in 11 points and Pat Carroll added 10.

Nelson's jumper from the wing with 8:32 left in the first half was his fifth and sixth points of the game, eclipsing Bernard Blunt's 1,985 points and making him Saint Joseph's all-time leading scorer. Nelson finished the game just four points shy of 2,000 for his career.

"Any loss is devastating, especially when we worked so hard," Nelson said. "We let ourselves down by not taking pride in our defense. There was a lack of communication and rotation on defense."

Xavier got 24 points from Romain Sato, who supplemented that with 11 rebounds; 23 from Lionel Chalmers; and 19 from Anthony Myles. The Musketeers also destroyed the Hawks on the backboard, 43-18. More importantly, their defensive effort kept Saint Joseph's off-balance the entire game.

"They were keying on our scorers," said West, noting that he and Nelson met stiff resistance every time they penetrated and adding that Carroll and the other snipers had difficulty finding open shots. "It was taking away from what we excel at on offense. They did their homework."

The Hawks will head home and begin to prepare for next week's NCAA Tournament. Selection Sunday will determine whether the team receives the No. 1 seed many believe it has earned. For Martelli, the loss is a chance to reinforce the notion of teamwork and the need to work harder.

"We got here together, and we'll leave her together, taking this loss like men," he said.