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MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Saint Louis University coach Lorenzo Romar kept saying it: If we can stay close with No. 1-ranked Cincinnati, you never know what will happen. Maybe someone gets in foul trouble, someone hits a basket, you never know.

On Thursday afternoon in the quarterfinals of the Conference USA tournament, something happened. Three minutes and four seconds into the game, Cincinnati's Kenyon Martin, who is expected to win every player-of-the-year honor this season, bumped into SLU's Justin Love in the lane while trying to set a screen. Martin slipped, his right leg bent back under his body and he landed on his right foot. The result was a fractured right fibula and ligament damage.

With their go-to guy gone, the Bearcats were reduced to mere mortals. And with the Billikens playing their best - and guttiest - basketball of the season, they pulled off something that no one outside the SLU locker room expected before the game: A 68-58 win that sends them to the conference semifinals Friday against Tulane and gives a major boost to their once remote NCAA Tournament hopes.

It was the first time SLU beat a No. 1 team since Dec. 29, 1951, when they upended Kentucky 61-60.>

"As soon as we beat Southern Miss (in the first round), all we could think about was Cincinnati and how bad they beat us," said SLU forward Justin Tatum, who came off the bench to score seven points, grab six rebounds and make four steals. "This is about the best feeling I've had. It was the best game we played all season. We'll be on a cloud for a while."

"We believed in ourselves and believed we could get that done," Romar said. "In the locker room before the game, they had that look in their eye."

The win breathed new life into SLU's NCAA chances. Not only are the Billikens (17-13) two wins away from the conference tournament title and an automatic bid, but they have shown they can play with every team still in the tournament. Also, their RPI should move into the low 40s.

The NCAA selection committee says it takes injuries into account when analyzing candidates for the tournament, so Martin's absence presumably will be considered when the committee weighs SLU's victory.

If nothing else, the Billikens' spot in the National Invitation Tournament is secure.

"Our goal is to get to the (NCAA) Tournament," Love said. "Now, we're one step closer"

The win certainly will wipe out the memories of SLU's 43-point loss to Cincinnati on Saturday.

"We had one thing on our mind: revenge," said SLU guard John Redden, who did an excellent job defensively on Cincinnati's Kenny Satterfield. "The last game was an embarrassment. We wanted to come back and show we're better than what we showed there."

The loss knocked Cincinnati (28-3) out of the tournament, and the loss of Martin will likely squelch Cincinnati's dreams of a national championship. Without Martin, a senior whose college career was ended with the injury, Cincinnati loses a lot of its swagger and almost surely will not be a No. 1 seed.

"We're going to give it a go," a grim Cincinnati coach Bob Huggins said. "We've got some good basketball players."

With Martin gone, the game turned into a nerve-wracking, back-and-forth battle. SLU led by two at halftime, a far cry from being down 20 at the half at Cincinnati on Saturday.

A 7-0 run put Cincinnati ahead by four early in the second half, but SLU battled back to retake the lead at 44-43. The teams swapped the lead on their next four possessions before a basket by Tatum built SLU's lead to three with 11:44 to play.

From there, it was an exercise in survival, which wasn't helped by SLU missing 10 free throws. Every time Cincinnati challenged SLU, the Billikens responded. Cincinnati trailed 59-55 and had the ball, but Satterfield lost it on a drive to the basket. Redden hit two free throws to make the lead 61-55 before Mickeal made a three-point play to cut the lead back to three with 1:16 to play.

But SLU, which had blown many leads this year, refused to do so again. Tatum, a 54.2 percent free throw shooter, hit two with 1:13 to play. "I knew we had it won when Tatum started making his free throws," Love said.

Mickeal missed a shot, Tatum knocked the rebound out of Mickeal's grasp, and Love picked it up and was fouled. Love made both free throws with 49 seconds to play, and the win was in sight. When Cinci's freshman sensation DerMarr Johnson missed a 3-point shot with about 15 seconds to play with the Billikens up by eight, the smile on Love's face as he dribbled the ball upcourt told the story. When the final buzzer sounded, there was the requisite amount of mobbing.

"Any time you win two straight in the conference tournament, especially with one against the No. 1 team in the conference, your self esteem has to pick up," Romar said. "But this wasn't the conference championship. We have two more games to win against two very good teams."