NC State shocks Virginia: Wolfpack’s stunning ACC Tournament run continues with OT win
Michael O’Connell delivered the biggest shot of N.C. State’s season, a scintillating moment that propelled the Wolfpack further on their magical March run.
O’Connell’s banked-in 3-pointer at the regulation buzzer sent the game into overtime, and DJ Burns scored seven points in the extra frame to lift No. 10 seed N.C. State past No. 3 seed Virginia, 73-65, in the ACC Tournament semifinals Friday night at Capital One Arena.
“Michael’s shot, man, that’s a great shot,” N.C. State coach Kevin Keatts said, “and I had a direct view of it. As it went up I was like, man, that shot is going in, it’s going in and then luckily it did.”
Said O’Connell, “It doesn’t matter how it goes in, it counts. It’s three points and it took us to overtime. I’ll take it every time.”
The win, the fourth in four nights for N.C. State (21-14), sent the Wolfpack into Saturday night’s ACC Tournament championship game opposite rival North Carolina (27-6) at 8:30 p.m.
It’s the first ACC tournament final appearance since 2007 for the Wolfpack, who will need to win a fifth game in five nights to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and capture their first ACC Tournament title since 1987.
The only other team to win five games in five days to win a conference tournament was Connecticut in the Big East in 2011.
Keatts is confident his team has enough energy and passion to not run out of steam.
“We’ve got a pretty good plan, I think,” Keatts said. “Every day, we’ve done the same thing, and it’s weird. I’ve eaten the same lunch every day. The only problem is I can’t go to the same diner tonight because it’s closed.”
After O’Connell’s 3-pointer completed the Wolfpack’s comeback from six points down in the final 51 seconds of regulation, Virginia (23-10) started the overtime scoring with an Isaac McKneely 3-pointer. DJ Burns countered with a pair of baskets inside to put the Wolfpack up by a point.
“I mean, the way we got into overtime we felt we had all the momentum,” N.C. State center Ben Middlebrooks said. “We knew we were gonna do it, especially as soon as Burns got that first bucket going in and he got going. There’s no one out there even stopping him.”
A Ryan Dunn dunk, with 2:02 remaining in overtime, gave the Cavaliers a 65-64 lead.
But the Wolfpack scored the game’s final nine points to continue their dream run through the ACC Tournament, reversing their season after losing seven of nine, and four in a row, to end the regular season.
Burns scored inside, drew a foul and hit a free throw with 1:43 to play putting N.C. State ahead for good at 67-65. O’Connell’s rebound basket with 43.3 seconds left pushed the lead to 69-65 and DJ Horne made four free throws from there to salt away the win.
Virginia used a burst of late McKneely scoring in regulation to build a 53-46 lead with 4:17 to play and still led 57-52 after a Reece Beekman dunk with 1:26 left in regulation. But the Cavaliers made just 1 of 5 free throws the rest of the game. Beekman hit one with 51 seconds left to give his team a 58-52 lead.
Casey Morsell, fouled while attempting a 3-pointer, hit three free throws with 43 seconds to play.
When McKneely missed the front end of a one-and-bonus with five seconds left, the Wolfpack hustled the ball up the court and O’Connell, covered by McKneely, made a long 3-pointer from in front of the NC State bench as the buzzer sounded to send the game into overtime.
Burns led N.C. State with 19 points, while O’Connell had 12 points. The Wolfpack made only 3 of 17 3-pointers but O’Connell hit the one counted the most.
Middlebrooks added 12 points off the bench for the Wolfpack, which shot 48.3% overall and made 5 of its 7 shots in overtime.
McKneely tallied a game-high 23 points for Virginia, which shot 37.9% for the game and hit just 3 of 11 shots in overtime.
This story was originally published March 16, 2024 at 12:02 AM.