March Madness: LI's Michael O'Connell leader of pack for N.C. State
Michael O'Connell of the North Carolina State Wolfpack reacts after scoring against the Marquette Golden Eagles during the first half of the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 game oat American Airlines Center on Friday in Dallas. Credit: Getty Images/Patrick Smith
Michael O’Connell was there in the middle of it all again on Friday night. The point guard from Mineola is now the floor general for a North Carolina State team mounting an unexpected charge through the NCAA Tournament. And behind the three-point arc with less than two minutes left, he saw a chance to snuff out Marquette’s bid for a last-ditch comeback.
His aim was true. That basket restored a dwindling lead to 11 points and sent the Wolfpack to a 67-58 win and a spot in Sunday night’s South Regional title game against ACC rival Duke in Dallas.
N.C. State performed another feat of March magic and the 6-2 O’Connell, the one-time Newsday All-Long Island selection out of Chaminade High School, had done his part.
“People dream about being a part of something like this,” O’Connell told Newsday on Saturday morning in a telephone interview. “Teams dream about being right here where we are and doing what we’re doing.”
That was him after graduating Stanford in three years and never getting a Big Dance turn. It’s why he transferred and became one of the eight new members of the Wolfpack.
There will be an impulse to look at N.C. State’s No. 11 seeding and the “14” in its 25-14 record and call the Wolfpack this tournament’s Cinderella.
“We’ll go whatever label, but at the end of the day, we know we can win games,” O’Connell said at a news conference at American Airline Center on Saturday. “I don’t know necessarily if we want to run with that title, but it is what it is.”
“If that’s what you want to call it, that’s cool, but that’s not how we feel,” chimed in DJ Burns Jr., the Wolfpack big man people can’t take their eyes off. “I’ll just leave it at that.”
North Carolina State was a listing ship less than three weeks ago. Then it won five games in five days — the signature moment was O’Connell’s buzzer-beating three-pointer to force OT in a semifinal win over Virginia — to capture the ACC title and steal an NCAA Tournament bid.
It carries a run of eight straight must-win victories into the matchup with fourth-seeded Duke (27-8), one of them an ACC quarterfinal win over the Blue Devils.
Wolfpack coach Kevin Keatts called O’Connell one of the most important players in this postseason because that 17-14 team needed him to produce more than his 4.5 points and 3.0 rebounds per game.
In the eight postseason wins, he’s averaged 10.8 points and 3.9 assists and shot 48% overall and 44% on three-point attempts in 36 minutes a game.
“He is playing with so much confidence . . . added something we didn’t have in the regular season,” Keatts said. “I also think he’s found his voice. It takes a little bit of time for transfers to come in and find their voice . . . and now he’s coaching on the floor. Everything that I envision of him being a point guard is what’s happening.
“He scores when we need a basket,” he added. “He passes it . . . to get everybody involved. And his leadership in the locker room and during timeouts has been really huge for us.”
“We were all coming from different programs that played different styles and this wasn’t going to happen overnight,” O’Connell said. “At the start, everyone was trying to show what they could do and prove themselves — but in a good way. Then you learn how to play together. Now we’re just growing, getting better in every game.”
That’s exactly what the Wolfpack have looked like. Each time they’ve played the past three weeks, they’ve been a more confident team than they were in the previous game. He said part of that is Keatts reminding them to rely on instinct and have fun.
“If you’re tight, overthinking everything and worried about mistakes, it’s not going to go well,” O’Connell said. “These elimination games, the situation, can cause a team to struggle. Now we’re just going out and playing.”
N.C. State can become the sixth No. 11 seed to reach a Final Four. None got to the title game. For a more optimistic take, think of the 2011 UConn teams. That was the only other school to win five games in five days to capture a conference title, and it never lost again.
Those Huskies came out of an 11-bid Big East, got a No. 3 seed and could never be labeled a Cinderella. This N.C. State crew certainly isn’t that. O’Connell and his teammates don’t care about labels, only about winning another game.
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.