Illinois picked the right time to figure out how to win a close game.

Chester Frazier's reverse layup with 3.8 seconds left gave the Fighting Illini a 64-63 win over Penn State on Thursday in the first round of the Big Ten tournament at Indianapolis.

Penn State's Talor Battle had a final shot, but his long 3-pointer bounced off the backboard to give Illinois the victory.

The Illini had lost their last five games that had been decided by four points or fewer. Two of those losses had been against the Nittany Lions.

"It's been so many games down the stretch where we've been up or down a point, and we let the game go," Illinois center Shaun Pruitt said. "It's good to be on the other side for once."

Brian Randle led Illinois (14-18) with 17 points. Meacham scored 14 points and Pruitt had 10 points and 11 rebounds for the 10th-seeded Illini.

The Illini have won three of four heading into today's quarterfinal matchup with No. 17 Purdue.

Battle led Penn State (15-16) with 17 points, seven rebounds and five assists, and Stanley Pringle added 13 points for the seventh-seeded Nittany Lions.

The Big East tournament is down to four teams: two familiar cast members and a couple of newcomers, one with a coach who has 614 career wins.But don't think for a moment that Bob Huggins came looking for a victory or two to make Selection Sunday a bit more bearable for West Virginia."We packed for the week," he said Thursday, after his fifth-seeded Mountaineers outlasted No. 15 Connecticut to reach the semifinals against top-seeded Georgetown. "This is for us a four-game tournament. We knew that coming in."In his first season in Morgantown, Huggins already has the Mountaineers playing with conference stalwarts who always seem to be around this time of year. Also advancing Thursday were Pittsburgh, which has played in the past two title games, and No. 25 Marquette, which will be making its first semifinal appearance.Joe Alexander scored a career-high 34 points to lead the Mountaineers (25-7), who will need a similar effort from the 6-foot-8 swingman if they want to knock off a program that is an astonishing 13-0 when it's the top seed.The Hoyas (26-4) have won more Big East tournament games (45) than any other school, including six of their last seven, and seem to be the hottest shooting team still standing. Georgetown tied a tournament record and broke a school mark with 17 3-pointers in an 82-63 quarterfinal drubbing of Villanova.The other semifinal pits the surging Golden Eagles, who upset No. 14 Notre Dame 89-79 against seventh-seeded Pittsburgh, which pulled off the tournament's biggest surprise by knocking off second-seeded and No. 13 Louisville 76-69 in overtime. (See story on Page 9.)Jerel McNeal was the catalyst, scoring a career-high 28 points, and reserve guard Maurice Acker scored 10 of his 11 points in a 4:07 span of the second half to help Marquette (24-8) put away conference player of the year Luke Harangody and Notre Dame.

<B>No. 2 Memphis 75, Tulane 56</B>In Memphis, Chris Douglas-Roberts scored 17 points to get the Tigers (31-1) to the semifinals of the C-USA tournament.Coach John Calipari and the Tigers are trying to lock down a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament for the second time in three seasons.

<B>No. 3 UCLA 88, California 66</B>In Los Angeles, UCLA buried California under a barrage of 3-pointers to start the second half and advanced to the Pac-10 semifinals.Darren Collison scored 19 points, Josh Shipp 18, and freshman Kevin Love had nine of his 11 in the second half after early foul trouble. UCLA (29-3) had its best 3-point shooting game of the season, hitting 14-of-25.

Brook Lopez had 20 points and 15 rebounds, including 10 in a second-half spurt that helped Stanford (25-6) pull away.

Derrick Low scored 18 points and Washington State blew most of a 20-point lead before beating Oregon.

<B>No. 24 BYU 89, Colorado State 62</B>In Las Vegas, Lee Cummard, the conference co-player of the year, scored 18 points to lead BYU.The top-seeded Cougars (26-6) shot 65 percent from the field.

<B>No. 10 Xavier 74, Dayton 65</B>In Atlantic City, N.J., Josh Duncan scored 16 points and Xavier held Dayton to five baskets in the final 12 minutes.C.J. Anderson added 15 points and the top-seeded Musketeers (27-5) beat Dayton (21-10).

<B>No. 18 Vanderbilt 93, Auburn 82</B>In Atlanta, A.J. Ogilvy scored a career-best 27 points and Shan Foster added 26 as the Commodores (26-6) shot 67 percent (33 of 49) from the field, falling just short of the conference tournament record.