Guarded by 6-foot-7 all-American Casey Jacobsen, the 6-4 junior nonetheless had torched Stanford for 37 points with stunning 15-for-20 shooting. Two weeks of March Madness remain, but a performance like O'Connor's may not be matched.
As O'Connor crouched under the St. Joe's basket with 11 seconds remaining after fouling out, his hand covering his face, the crowd gave him a standing ovation. Even the Stanford band, known for its biting humor, saluted O'Connor.
"Casey did a great job on him," Stanford point guard Michael McDonald said after the Cardinal (30-2) survived the ninth-seeded Hawks, 90-83, to advance to the Sweet 16 against Cincinnati on Thursday in Anaheim, Calif. "But he [O'Connor] was just shooting in his face like Casey wasn't even there."
About 45 minutes after the game, a few Hawks remained in the dressing room, slumped on benches and staring in disbelief that they had lost. "No one could have told me we were going to lose," center Damian Reid said. But 10 consecutive Stanford free throws in the final minute after an 80-80 tie, and the inside power of the Cardinal's 7-0 twins - Jason and Jarron Collins - were too much for the Hawks to overcome.
"There was a lot of emotion in here," Bill Phillips, the 6-10 junior, said softly as he struggled to describe the postgame dressing-room scene. "We fully expected to win this game."
Added senior captain Erick Woods: "All the work we put into the season, we were letting it all out. Guys were thanking each other, guys were thanking the seniors. We thought the whole time we could win. But when the buzzer went off . . ."
As they did four years ago, when they went to the Sweet 16 in San Jose, Calif., before losing to Kentucky in the West Regional, St. Joseph's once again became the endearing Hawks from a tiny Jesuit college a couple of thousand miles east.
