O’Connell, AP basketball writer, dies at 64

NEW YORK — Jim O’Connell, the longtime college basketball writer for The Associated Press and a member of the Hall of Fame, has died. He was 64. He died Monday after a series of ailments, his son Andrew said. O’Connell was a former president of the United States Basketball Writers Association. He entered that organization’s Hall of Fame in 2002, the same year he earned the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame’s Curt Gowdy Award for his coverage of the sport. O’Connell served as the AP’s national college basketball writer since 1987 and was a fixture at all the sport’s major events, from the Final Four to the Big East Tournament to the Maui Invitational. He covered eight Olympics and worked as a desk supervisor, overseeing the entire sports operation for the world’s largest news-gathering organization. “He was the source on college basketball,” said Terry Taylor, the AP’s sports editor from 1992-2013. “He knew coaches, players, games, dates of games and final scores — all manner of factoids — off the top of his head. And when you looked it up, he was always right.” O’Connell built deep relationships with colleagues, players, executives, referees and coaches, particularly the ones who most respected him, such as fellow Hall of Famers Jim Calhoun, Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski. “He was a great man, he really was,” Boeheim said. “He was a guy you looked forward to seeing. Always had a good word and a smile. He wrote sports, but he did it in a positive way, always. He was always good to players, coaches, fans — everybody. He was a unique individual, always had a good word for everybody. Always.” He covered every Final Four from 1979 through 2017, including 2015, just months after an operation that required partial amputation of his leg. The NCAA made sure O’Connell had a seat at the end of the media table, so he could stretch out his prosthetic.

O’Connell