Historic And Improbable NC State Run Continues With Overtime Win In ACC Semifinal Over Virginia

Raza Umerani

Staff Writer

March 16, 2024

WASHINGTON, D.C. — March often doesn’t make sense.

Buzzer beaters, Cinderellas and upsets highlight what is an enigma of a month in college basketball.

A double-digit seed that lost seven of its last nine regular season games —  including its last four — isn’t necessarily supposed to make it to the conference tournament championship, much less win four games in four days to get there.

But here we are. No. 10 seed NC State is heading to the ACC Tournament Championship with its 73-65 win over No. 3 seed Virginia on Friday night inside Capital One Arena.

Michael O’Connell’s game-tying buzzer-beating prayer from beyond the arc highlighted a six-point comeback inside the final 51 seconds of regulation to force overtime, where the Wolfpack (21-4) outscored the Cavaliers (23-10) 15-7 to come away with a most improbable victory and advance to its first conference title game since 2007.

“Honestly when we got on that plane to come here on Monday, we talked about being in this situation, and I told them to visualize this,” Wolfpack head coach Kevin Keatts said postgame. “I asked everyone on our team, I said, I want you to bring something with you that's lucky, that's really lucky to you…because we're going to have some luck and we're going to have some outstanding situations.”

Luck was certainly on State’s side towards the end of regulation. After a flagrant foul was called on big man DJ Burns, UVa’s Reece Beekman missed both free throws to keep his team’s lead at five. Upon being fouled again on the ensuing possession, he went just 1-for-2, pushing the lead to six.

“We talked about it in our huddle, just taking one possession at a time,” Keatts said. “Let's figure out how to chop this down. Let's figure out if we can — when it got to four or five points, how can we get it down to a one-possession game and stay locked in. I think these guys did a tremendous job. They gave us a chance.”

Needing a three, Casey Morsell drew contact from beyond the arc and earned a foul. After draining all three shots from the line, it was once again a fouling game. This time, Isaac McKneely went to the line with just five seconds remaining. A single free throw would ice the game.

But his first attempt clanked off the side of the rim and into the hands of Morsell, who flung a two-handed pass down the court to O’Connell. Despite having fouls to give, Virginia let him play it out. He leapt from the left wing, hoisted a rainbow-arcing three, which banked off the glass and swirled around the rim before dropping just as the final buzzer sounded, putting five more minutes on the clock.

It was just State’s third triple of the game on its 17th attempt and its first make from beyond the arc in 12 minutes.

“I had a direct view of it,” Keatts said. “As it went up, I was like, ‘man, that shot is going in, it's going in.’ And then luckily it did and obviously sent us to overtime.”

The Cavaliers are no strangers to this set of circumstances. In their previous game against Boston College in the quarterfinals, missed free throws down the stretch allowed Mason Madsden to tie the game at the buzzer — another shot from that vaunted left wing.

But in that instance, being the worst free throw shooting team in the ACC didn’t come back to bite them. Head coach Tony Bennett even joked about his team “saving them until we need them.” 

This time, shooting 6-of-11 from the charity stripe had negative ramifications. Whereas UVa’s defense stifled the Eagles to the tune of one made field goal in overtime, the Wolfpack had their way.

More specifically, DJ Burns had his way.

The star big man scored seven of his team-high 19 points in the extra period, including all but two of State’s first nine points in overtime. Ryan Dunn was no match for him defensively, allowing all three attempts to fall, including an and-one to give the Wolfpack the lead that it’d never relinquish.

Despite seemingly being on the right side of the bubble after Thursday’s win, a loss like this severely hurts Virginia’s NCAA Tournament hopes. It was already playing with fire, and a path through the No. 11 and 10 seeds to a championship game seemed like an extinguisher. Instead, it was fuel. And now a spot in the field of 68 is certainly no guarantee.

“I think [we] showed their body of work over the course,” Bennett said. “This league is good, but no amount of politicking, no amount of stuff — they're going to get behind closed doors and you trust that they'll look at it and see the eye test and all those things. There's so much talk going on out there, it's too much. So get behind closed doors, make the right decision.”

The Wolfpack go for its first ACC title since 1987 and an automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament against North Carolina on Saturday night at 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN. It’ll be its first trip to the title game since 2007, where it was also a No. 10 seed playing top-seeded UNC.

It’s already the first program to go from the first round to the semifinal under the current format, but with a win, State would become the first team to ever win five games in five days to capture an ACC championship.

“I'm happy for our guys,” Keatts said. “We live on. We get a chance to play against a very good Carolina team tomorrow, and [we’re] excited about our opportunity.

“Everybody expected this to be Carolina and Duke. Well, it's Carolina and NC State. We play pretty good basketball at NC State, too.”