Seton Hall Hits the Big One : East Regional: Dehere’s shot with two seconds to play beats La Salle, 78-76, and caps comeback from eight points behind.

They met near the mid-court line, where La Salle Coach Speedy Morris was waiting with a handshake and a postgame message for Seton Hall Coach P.J. Carlesimo.

“You made shots when it mattered,” said Morris, as he pumped Carlesimo’s hand.

Carlesimo wasn’t about to argue. Moments after watching Seton Hall guard Terry Dehere sink an 18-foot baseline jump shot with two seconds remaining--good enough to give the Pirates a 78-76 victory in the first round of Thursday’s NCAA East Regional--Carlesimo knew better.

“We were like a miss away from being out of here,” he said. “But we didn’t miss.”

No. 4-seeded Seton Hall trailed LaSalle, the 13th seeded team, 70-62, with four minutes to play. Then Dehere made a three-pointer.

Seconds later, Seton Hall redshirt freshman John Leahy, a three-point specialist, did the same thing. And then he sank another three-pointer, this time cutting the La Salle lead to 74-71 with 2:38 remaining. He finished with 14 crucial points, 12 of them courtesy of three-point shots.

Seton Hall eventually found itself with the ball and a tie game with 46 seconds to play. The Pirates whittled the timer to about 10 seconds before working the ball to Dehere, who had come free off a screen set by teammate Gordon Winchester. As the scoreboard clock raced toward zeros, Dehere hit the shot that mattered most.

The Explorers tried a full-court desperation pass to center Milko Lieverst, but the ball sailed too high and was intercepted--fittingly enough--by Dehere, who tossed the ball away as the buzzer sounded.

“We were very lucky to be here, and La Salle is very unlucky not to be here,” Carlesimo said. “But we’ll take it.”

Seton Hall (22-8) was more accurate than lucky. The Pirates shot 54% from the floor, 41% from the three-point line and 93.3% from the free throw line. They also managed to hold the Explorers (20-11) to 41.5% from the floor and 30% on three pointers. La Salle guard Randy Woods scored 33 points, but only 12 in the second half, when Carlesimo switched defenders from Bryan Caver to Dehere.

Caver might have bombed on defense, but he was three for three on three-pointers. Before Thursday’s game against La Salle, Caver hadn’t made a three-pointer in the last eight games and had only five for the season.

“We didn’t even expect (Caver) to hit one shot, let alone (three) threes,” said Woods, who was nothing short of amazing at times.

And then there was Leahy, who rarely hit anything but net on his four three-pointers, all in a four-minute period late in the second half.

“And he wasn’t shooting from 19-(feet-)9,” said Morris, referring to the minimum three-point distance. “If those shots don’t go in, you fellas are telling us what a great job we did.”

Instead, there were only condolences. Dehere hugged Woods at game’s end. La Salle guard Jack Hurd, who made five of 13 from the field--two of 10 three pointers--looked as if he had been crying when he emerged from the locker room.

“A break here, a break there and we’d be moving into the next round,” Woods said.