NC State’s Michael O’Connell suffers through the end of Final Four run he helped ignite

Michael O’Connell walked out of the N.C. State locker room Saturday night about 45 minutes after the Wolfpack’s 63-50 defeat against Purdue in an NCAA Tournament national semifinal, and he walked slowly and with a limp. He wore a backpack and in a pocket on the side of it he carried his nameplate from the Wolfpack’s locker room.

It had his name on it, and number 12, and the logo of the Final Four — a stage on which N.C. State had not played in 41 years. It was a small keepsake. A souvenir from the most improbable of journeys. Something to remember this trip by, after the pain subsides and whenever O’Connell is able to walk like normal again. It may be a little while.

College basketball’s postseason offers highs few other American sporting endeavors can match. But the other side of that is the cruelty. It’s the suddenness of the end. The finality. All that hope and anticipation disappearing in the shrill sound of a horn when times run out. Finally, the Wolfpack’s time came here on Saturday night.

And the ending was especially cruel for O’Connell, who was limited to only 12 minutes after he slipped and suffered an apparent left hamstring injury a little more than six minutes into the biggest game of his life. The biggest of any of his teammates’ lives, too. This, they hoped, would be their moment. For O’Connell, a chance was taken in an instant; an opportunity lost with a misstep.

It happened just after DJ Horne, who along with O’Connell is the other half of State’s starting backcourt, came up with a loose ball steal. Horne passed ahead to O’Connell, who tried to accelerate just past mid-court before he took an awkward fall. He slid on the court and grimaced, on his back, while he held his left hamstring. He knew from the start that’s what it was.

“I just want to step (and) my leg just buckled under me,” O’Connell said. “And I just kind of went down.”

At the time of his injury, State trailed 14-9. Without him, the Wolfpack labored to discover its offensive rhythm. It never quite found it, amid a torrent of missed shots and sloppy possessions. O’Connell, meanwhile, returned later in the first half but then exited again after a couple minutes.

By then a noticeable limp was starting to affect him. His status grew more in doubt.

“It definitely changed us,” Kevin Keatts, the N.C. State coach, said of O’Connell’s injury. Keatts noted how the Wolfpack became more dependent upon Horne to be the team’s primary ball-handler. State also turned to reserve guard Breon Pass.

“That being said,” Keatts said, “we’ve been playing seven or eight guys. One of your key guys goes down, it changes a lot. He’s our leading assist guy, so we didn’t really have anyone that could create for someone else.”

O’Connell’s injury made for a somber final bookend to an unlikely postseason journey that he ignited. It was O’Connell who in a lot of ways started this entire run for N.C. State 22 days ago, as of Saturday, with the shot he made against Virginia in the ACC Tournament. The shot at the end of regulation. The one that bounced off the backboard and circled the rim at least twice, and went part of the way around again, before it fell through.

The most improbable of shots. A life-giving moment for the Wolfpack.

Upon that shot falling that night, O’Connell flexed. His teammates mobbed him. State won in overtime. It won the next day, and beat North Carolina for its first ACC Tournament championship since 1987. The Wolfpack kept winning. And winning. And all after a shot that perhaps had no business going in; one that personified the madness of March — one that offered a reminder, again, of how thin the margins are.

If it bounces a different way, State’s season ends right there. But it did not.

A magical run ensued, instead. Right up until Saturday night at State Farm Stadium.

O’Connell became representative of the emotional spectrum of college basketball’s postseason. On one end of that spectrum are moments like the shot he made against Virginia. On the other: moments like the injury he suffered early in the first half against Purdue. Fate played a part in both. A ball bounced just the right way, in one moment. In another, his foot landed wrong and he fell.

“It’s a part of it,” O’Connell said, acknowledging the frustration of preparing and working and making sure he was in the best shape, and then you “take one wrong step. And it goes down.”

At halftime, O’Connell limped his way from the locker room to the court — a long walk in a stadium built for football. He tried to keep his leg loose while he rode an exercise bike. At one point, a trainer wrapped his left leg in a thick bandage. It did not look as though he’d be back.

And then he was, with a little less than 10 minutes remaining. He played a few more minutes before he spent the final six and a half minutes on the bench. State’s offense, which struggled all night, was never the same without him. The Wolfpack missed its primary facilitator. It missed O’Connell’s leadership, his composure. His ability to make a shot or two, too.

O’Connell, after all, had made some important ones for State during this run. The most important one of all. The one that started this whole thing, a little more than three weeks earlier.

“It’s been an unbelievable ride,” O’Connell said, and he could take solace in that, at least. He could take solace that he tried to play even while his leg ached and he moved slowly. If he could walk, he said, he wanted to be out there. And so he was, as much as he could be.

“I’m just grateful for it all,” he said of State’s run, if he wasn’t for how it ended. “It’s not always going to be perfect and it’s not always going to be easy. So I’m just glad that we were able to stick together and make it to this point.”

Soon it was time. O’Connell dressed and packed his things. He slid his nameplate off his locker and placed it in the pocket of a backpack. Twenty-two days earlier, he’d made a shot that will be replayed over and over. It was a shot that led to an ACC championship and one that began the wildest of rides. It helped carry N.C. State all the way to the Final Four.

And then it was over. O’Connell walked down a long hall, toward the bus. His steps were slow.