Against Virginia, No. 22 St. John’s will try to recover from devastating defeat

There’s no shortage of ways to describe how close the St. John’s men’s basketball team was Thursday night to earning the first signature win of the Rick Pitino era.Instead, Pitino and his squad have a short amount of time to overcome a potentially demoralizing loss.The No. 22 Red Storm will look to produce a quick bounce-back effort Friday night when they play Virginia in the third-place game of the Baha Mar Hoops Championship in Nassau, Bahamas.Both teams lost in opening-round action Thursday night. St. John’s suffered its first loss of the season when Jeremy Roach hit a 3-pointer as time expired in the second overtime to lift No. 13 Baylor to a 99-98 win. Virginia also fell for the first time in the nightcap, when No. 11 Tennessee pulled away from the Cavaliers in the second half for a 64-42 victory.St. John’s (4-1) appeared primed to pull off the upset when it scored the first seven points of the game and took a pair of 18-point leads in the first half before entering the locker room with a 44-30 lead.Baylor shot 47.1 percent (16 of 34) from the field in the second half, including 57.1 percent (8 of 14) from 3-point territory and went ahead 77-74 on Roach’s 3-pointer with 1:48 left. St. John’s scored the final three points of regulation and then overcame a five-point deficit in the final 1:47 of the first overtime before opening two five-point leads in the second extra session, the last at 98-93 when Deivon Smith split a pair of free throws with 18 seconds remaining.V.J. Edgecombe responded with a 3-pointer for Baylor and St. John’s left the door open one more time when Zuby Ejiofor missed a pair of free throws with 4.1 seconds remaining. Norchad Omier pulled down the rebound and passed to Roach, who raced down the court and hoisted the game-winning shot just before the buzzer sounded.”That was about as difficult a loss as you can have,” Pitino said.Ejiofor’s missed free throws served as a harsh reminder of the narrow margin between victory and defeat. St. John’s shot 57.1 percent (16 of 28) from the line, matching the program’s worst single-game mark since Pitino took over prior to last season.

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