It took a lot of pieces to build NC State’s puzzle. Michael O’Connell took longer to fit.

In the wake of N.C. State’s two wins in Pittsburgh, someone texted Michael O’Connell about going to the “second weekend” of the NCAA tournament, and that specific phrase jogged a memory he’d buried deep in his mind. But not, as it turned out, all that deep on his phone.

Before O’Connell visited N.C. State last spring, having decided to leave Stanford and play elsewhere, assistant coach Joel Justus left him a voice mail, in which he said the Wolfpack staff believed O’Connell could be a starting point guard “on a second-weekend team in the NCAA tournament and help them win an ACC championship.”

O’Connell still had the voicemail on his phone, and he and Justus laughed about it as the Wolfpack made its way to Dallas, where O’Connell did Justus one better by helping N.C. State advance to the Final Four.

As recruiting pitches go, though, it’s incredibly prescient, the rare promise fully delivered, and in many ways sums up the way this team was built-slash-rebuilt on the fly last offseason. Each of the players brought in, like O’Connell, was designed to fit around the Wolfpack’s returning core of D.J. Burns and Casey Morsell. Each had a specific purpose. Each filled a specific need.

O’Connell was the veteran point guard who had started three years at Stanford, a steadying influence who also found his footing as a scorer in the second half of the season. D.J. Horne was the scorer, the finisher, the shot creator coming home. Jayden Taylor was a two-way guard like Morsell, equally comfortable on either end of the court. And board-crashing big men like Ben Middlebrooks and Mohamed Diarra complemented Burns’ weaknesses with their strengths.

In O’Connell’s case, there were a lot of options at point guard in the transfer portal. But N.C. State liked him because he had so many attributes the Wolfpack lacked elsewhere on the roster.

“When you’re doing what we’re doing in this day and age, you have to put pieces together in the puzzle,” Justus said. “It’s not a talent grab. It’s not just going out and getting the best players that we can get. That’s no slight toward any of the players that we got. But we knew that we were just a steady, old, solid point guard away from being able to play any kind of style of game.”

Which is exactly what the Wolfpack has done since starting this run against Louisville. N.C. State has jumped out to big leads, played from behind, scored inside, scored outside, played fast, played slow. Good teams have a Plan B. N.C. State has shown more than that. It’s also been a second-half killer, despite starting all of this with five games in five days.

That may be less about fitness levels than the uncommon resiliency that finally solidified into a character trait in the postseason. These players brought those ingredients with them from elsewhere, triumphs and heartbreaks of their own. Winning nine straight elimination games isn’t only about talent.

“At the end of the day, when you have a guy next to you who’s played in a lot of games, whether you’re up 10 or down 10, you’re able to rely on people when they’ve been there before,” O’Connell said. “You know they’ve been through what you’ve been through, so it’s easier to go out there – I know he’s going to be able to make a play, or have my back out there.”

It hasn’t hurt that O’Connell is one of three players to make huge steps forward in the postseason, along with Middlebrooks and Diarra. It took N.C. State a while to find its footing and rotation — freshman Dennis Parker Jr started 12 games in the middle of the season but hasn’t played in the postseason after being stricken with mononucleosis, and O’Connell didn’t start regularly until February — but the pieces have clicked into place now.

There are defined roles, distinct strengths and a shared workload on the roster now. Just about everyone has hit big shots at one point or another — O’Connell’s bank-shot buzzer-beater against Virginia tops the list — but it isn’t just his scoring, which has increased from 4.5 points to 10.2 points per game in the postseason. O’Connell has also been a calming influence when things have started to go wrong.

“I think he’s found his voice,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said. “It takes a little bit of time for transfers to come in and find their voice, even though he is an older guy. And now he’s coaching on the floor. Everything that I envision of him being a point guard is what’s happening.”

As for his promise to O’Connell that he could be a second-weekend point guard, Justus is willing to accept his error now that N.C. State has made it to the third weekend.

“I lied,” Justus said.

Photos: NC State basketball teams depart for men’s and women’s Final Fours

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