ST. CHARLES, Missouri (Ticker) -- Anthony Drejaj buried a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give Saint Louis a stunning 70-69 victory over Iowa in a first-round game of the National Invitation Tournament.

Drejaj scored 23 points for the Billikens (19-12), who benefited from a clock operator's mistake and advanced to face the winner of the Purdue-Notre Dame matchup. It was the first basketball game played at the Family Arena this season.

Iowa (16-13), which wasted a double-digit first-half lead and a six-point advantage in the final 3 1/2 minutes, took a 69-67 edge on a driving lefthanded layup by Pierre Pierce, who scored 16 points.

The basket should have stopped the clock, but it kept ticking and expired. While the clock was reset to five seconds, both teams huddled with their coaches. Chris Sloan took the inbounds pass and dribbled quickly upcourt before firing a pass to the right corner to Drejaj, whose shot splashed through as time expired.

It was the first lead for St. Louis since 2-0.

A layup by Sloan gave the Billikens a 63-63 tie with 2:07 left before a steal and dunk by Greg Brunner and a layup by Pierce made it 67-63 with 1:13 remaining.

Drejaj spun for a layup with 58 seconds to go, then made a steal and two free throws to tie it with 22 seconds left.

Jeff Horner scored 17 points for the Hawkeyes.