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.
“They’re going to be disappointed — they had the game in control at the end and (Roach) made a big shot,” Pitino said. “We missed the free throws, could’ve iced it. It could’ve been over, but it wasn’t.”
There were no such remorseful what-ifs for Virginia (3-1), which trailed only 22-21 at the half after Andrew Rohde hit a 3-pointer with five seconds left.
The Cavaliers opened the second half 1 for 6 with four turnovers during the first seven minutes, a span in which Tennessee mounted a 15-3 run. Virginia got within five points at 39-34 on Taine Murray’s 3-pointer with 10:48 left, but the Volunteers ended the game with a 25-8 surge.
Virginia, which has yet to score more than 70 points in a game this season, shot 28.6 percent from the field (14 of 49) and allowed Tennessee to pull down 18 offensive rebounds and score 19 second-chance points.
“When you play against high level competition, it really shows you where you are as a team,” interim head coach Ron Sanchez said. “We’ve got to put 40 minutes together. Twenty’s just not enough.”
