Michael O'Connell: "You Have To Win Games"

In case you missed it, guard Michael O'Connell represented NC State at the ACC Men's Basketball Tipoff, and here is more of what all he had to say at the event in Charlotte.    

NOTE: Click the video above to watch the interview.

You left the Purdue game with cramps and an injury. Obviously, y'all are headed up to San Diego to face them again. What's that going to be like for you, and hopefully getting to play the full game?
Hopefully I play the full game. I mean, I'm just excited for the opportunity. There's not going to be any underlying feelings. It's just going to be another game that we want to go out there and win no matter who the opponent is. It's just going to be a great opportunity to play with them again. 

Do you like the non-conference schedule? It's a very challenging schedule. 
Yeah, I mean, that's what you want when you're playing at this level. You want those challenge games, you want those big games to kind of show what we're capable of. So I'm definitely excited for all the games. 

Michael, what are the changes from this team from last year? Where are you guys better, at least conceivably, right now? 
I think the obvious big change is the players we lost and the players we gained. I think it's hard to replace certain players we lost. But we have some new guys that are coming in that are really talented. I think one thing for us is we hopefully can play a little faster, hopefully even faster than we want to, like get up and down, fly, pressure the ball. And I think that can really help us throughout the year. 

As part of the leadership this year, making sure you guys – we talked about that tough non-conference schedule. You want to get to February when you don't need that five-and-five-day situation. How big is that? 
I think it's huge. You never – I mean, going around was a great story, but it's also very challenging to do. So you want to put yourself in a better position where you don't have to win as many games as in the year. So it just comes to, like, just the whole season preparation is winning games and kind of executing from the beginning. Obviously, it's not easy dealing with a bunch of new guys, but all we have to do is really work towards it and just hope for the best and just keep working. 

Is it hard with the transfers to sort of mesh sometimes early on? 
I mean, at times, yeah. I feel like every program is going to go through [it]. It's just not easy when you have players coming from all these different programs. But so far, the guys have been meshing really well, and everyone's kind of buying in pretty quickly. So I'm expecting good things. 

Commissioner Jim Phillips called the ACC undervalued. It feels like there's more teams that should have made the tournament in the last few years. With what you guys were able to do last year, what is your assessment? Do you think you need to see more teams? 
Yeah, I don't want to – I definitely don't want to discredit any of the teams that made it and say other teams should have made it over them. But I know just from playing in the ACC that we have a lot of talented teams, and a lot of teams definitely could have made it and competed in one game. So I agree to the standpoint that ACC teams are very good, could have easily competed and won a lot of games. But at the same time, I don't want to discredit other teams that made it. 

You talked about being a leader this year. Is there anyone specifically you've really taken under your wing during the soft season? 
I would just say the freshman guards. It's the biggest thing I know. It's a pretty difficult transition at times from playing in high school or before you get to college in whatever leagues you're in and stuff like that. But just trying to explain things to them and try to help them understand what goes on. Obviously high school basketball is very different from college with the different structure and how we play and rotations and different things like that. So just trying to calm aside and just explain things, whether it's just simple to try to do an entry pass or how to run an offense. I think younger guys are someone you always try to help out the most. 

NC State is known for having kind of rabid fans, and that was probably proven when they showed up for y'all at 1:30 in the morning to welcome you back from the Elite Eight. So what excites you about going to play for the fans again, and what message do you have to Wolfpack Nation? 
I would just say they're great fans. They're dedicated and they want to see us do well. They're there for us at two in the morning supporting us because they care and they want to see us do well. We're just glad that we can win games soon. We were able to win that championship last year for them, and hopefully we can make some more happy moments for them.

Michael, when we spoke with you all a couple weeks ago, one thing that Coach Keatts said was that the defense might be further along than it was this time last year. Have you seen that growth? What do you attribute to the defense being better this one than it was last year? 
I would definitely say our defense has come along earlier for sure than we were last year. I just think we just have a lot of guys who are very good at defense. They're very active. They're hands in the passing lane, able to guard the ball one-on-one. Especially from the guard position, we have a lot of great guys that came in with quick feet. It's not easy to get by them, so I think that just helps. We have great on-ball defenders to make the defense flow a little better. 

You and Jayden went through spells where you were coming off the bench. He was coming off the bench, obviously. That foot clock in the postseason. How much did you learn from having to earn that role all last season and going into this year knowing, hey, I might be the guy, but at the same time, my spot's not guaranteed? 
I think Coach talks about it, too, with the team early on. You've got to go out there and work hard every day. You've got to prove yourself. You can be playing your best game, but if other guys are performing well, that's just how it is. For me, especially, not starting early on, and you might not be playing the minutes you want to do, you've got to just stay consistent. At some point, you might have that moment where you have to go in the game and you need to be ready. If you're not ready, you're going to lose that opportunity to go in the game the next time. I think every guy's kind of had a little bit of experience with that, is that you've got to be ready no matter if you're starting, playing 20 minutes, playing five minutes, playing the whole game. Just stay consistent with your work and be ready when you have time. 

Have you seen Jayden’s impact grow into this new role that he's taking on this year? Has he scored a little bit more? 
Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't even say it's just with scoring. I think overall, he's really… I mean, now he's an older guy. I think it's been pretty cool to see him. He's talking to younger guys, trying to help them through different things. He's very vocal on the defensive end, trying to help guys. He's talking, and that's from scoring. We know who he's for. It's not really a question. He's always doing his thing in practice. It's never fun guarding him one-on-one in isolation. But yeah, I think overall he's been doing a great job helping lead our team and just helping get guys better.

How much different is he in that year? After being here for a year?
I think it's tough when you're just a new guy. You never want to come in and overstep your boundaries in a sense. Guys have been here a little longer than us. You never want to come in and be that guy no one wants to play with or be around. So I think now that he's a returner and he's kind of established who he is and how he plays, he's able to be a little more confident with us. 

The difference between you coming in this year as opposed to last year where you were new, now you're settled at NC State. Just describe that difference, the build-up. 
Yeah, I would say like I was kind of just talking about when you first come in, you never want to overstep. You don't really know the people you're working with. You want to become comfortable with your surroundings. And I think that was a process throughout the whole year of just kind of gaining the trust with guys, building a bond with guys on and off the court. Whereas it comes to this point, I have a group of guys I played with, I went to battle with throughout the whole season. So obviously we have that bond from last year, but now it's building a bond with new guys where I'm more comfortable in this environment where they might be a little less comfortable whether they're coming from different teams or high school. So I think just going out of my way to talk to guys and help them get through what I went through last year. 

It’s no secret that you guys doubted last year that you went on and had the run that you did? But now it feels like, again, with the turnover that you guys had, there's not a lot of commotion around the team leading into this new season. Does it feel like that for you guys also? 
I wouldn't say there's an extreme amount of hype around our team right now and people anticipating us going far, winning a lot of games, but it doesn't really bother us. People say good things about us, bad things about us, but the biggest thing is we focus on what's going on in our locker room and with our team. We just want to do what we can do and control what we can control because we can't control what people say about us.

Does it fuel the fire at all? 
I would say there's some aspect. You always want to prove people wrong and show them that. Obviously we did it last year and we're capable of doing it again, but we don't want that to dictate our emotions or how we feel. We definitely notice it, but the biggest thing is just how we were. 

You guys won five games in five days. Can you talk about that? 
Yeah, that was one of the best times in my life for sure. Obviously won an ACC championship. Not many people can say they did that. The fact that we go and win some games to the Final Four, it's something you dream about since you're a kid. It's playing in the March Madness, winning games, making big plays, big moments. It really was a dream come true and I'm grateful for the opportunity. 

Playing those big games last year, how does that help you guys this year?
We've played in a big-time environment, so you're kind of used to going to different places or close games. You've been there before, so it's nothing new. 

Coach said that ACC play is a big reason why you guys were able to win all those games and go to the Final Four, but there's been a lot of talk about the non-conference schedule, and whether it will help more teams in the conference. Get it to the tournament. In your opinion, how can you guys capitalize more on the non-conference portion of the season when it comes so early and the team doesn't really know their identity just yet? 
I guess the simplest thing is you've got to win games. Obviously, it's early for us, but it's early for everyone else. Obviously, we all have the same time, or close to the same time, to prepare and get better. Just right now, until the games start, we really need to lock in and just get better every day. We've got to control what we control, make sure everyone's in the gym, make sure everyone's doing the right things, taking care of their bodies, staying healthy. The main point at that time is to win games.

You're going to have to do it to help yourself out for the end of the season. What excites you about the non-conference season? 
It's a short slate, but a challenging slate. Yeah, it's just you're playing great teams, and that's kind of what you want to be doing in college basketball. You want to play big-time teams in big-time environments. That's what it's about. It's a great portion of it, and it's very exciting. I think I'm just looking forward to that. 

Will it be weird to face Stanford this year? 
It definitely will be weird to be not wearing the uniform and playing against them, but it's going to be cool. It's going to be exciting to get out there and one more time and play them.

How surreal is that it's a conference game, too, that you're playing them? 
Yeah, it's going to be really weird, but again, because I'm going to be playing against them and not wearing the uniform, playing at their place, so it's going to be cool.