A Funny Sting Happens on Way to Four

It was a day when the mighty Connecticut basketball team played longball and hardball.

None of it as compelling as Emeka Okafor’s airball.

It was a game that established Connecticut as the tournament’s best remaining set of legs and elbows and brains.

Then why could we not stop staring at Emeka Okafor’s shoulder?

It would be nifty to write that Connecticut’s eye-widening, Final Four-ticketing victory over Alabama on Saturday has shown the Huskies worthy of being the Final One.

But in the word of Okafor as he gingerly twisted his right shoulder while removing an postgame ice bag later:

“Bleep!”

Connecticut easily won the game, 87-71, but afterward the spin was labored as the team tried to convince the world -- and maybe itself -- that the tournament’s most dominant remaining player was still standing.

The team is saying that, in a first-half collision that rattled his neck and shoulder and left his right arm numb, Okafor suffered only a mild “stinger” and will be fine for next weekend’s Final Four.

Hmmm. Must have been some bee.

“What he got feels like when you hit your funny bone,” Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun said.

Yeah, if hitting your funny bone makes you worry that you just lost a national championship.

This Connecticut team, with its versatile guards and inside strength and tough defense, has won its four tournament games by an average of 17.5 points, and can easily win two more.

But if Okafor is not at full strength, and if Duke shows up on the other bench, it will not win another one.

One cannot blame the Huskies, then, for downplaying any sort of malady suffered by a guy who already is playing with a stress fracture in his back.

Considering the bullwhip of a beating awaiting Okafor in the San Antonio paint, one could forgive the Huskies for refusing to acknowledge any injury altogether.

Heck, if this were the NHL during the Stanley Cup playoffs, Calhoun would announce that Okafor was suffering from a mild case of bowel distress.

But, unfortunately for Connecticut on Saturday, there were witnesses.

Okafor suffered the injury with 9:19 left in the first half, while being fouled on a successful layup, his only basket of the day.

The first hint was, trying to shoot the ensuing free throw, he could barely raise his right arm above his shoulder.

The second hint was an ensuing shot that went under the backboard, an attempt so sad Alabama fans couldn’t even bring themselves to chant, “Air-ball.”

“They all knew what was happening,” Okafor said, gesturing with his good left arm. “The ball was over here, and the rim was over there.”

Okafor struggled throughout the rest of the first half, attempting no shots, losing several rebounds, walking slowly to the locker room at halftime while rubbing his shoulder.

He began the second half on the floor, but soon it became obvious that something was oddly wrong with someone so awfully intimidating.

With 16:37 left in the blowout, the nation’s best shot blocker watched his shot blocked by Chuck Davis, who is two inches shorter.

Then, one of the nation’s most careful players was whistled for double-dribbling because he seemingly couldn’t control his right arm.

Then, for the first time in his three-year college career, Emeka Okafor took himself out of the game.

He walked to the sidelines, virtually collapsed into a chair, and spent the rest of the game there rubbing his shoulder and clenching his fist.

He never again used his right hand, not even to drink water. During postgame handshakes, he clutched a towel in that right hand, and shook with his left hand.

As the Huskies posed for the postgame television interview, teammate Rashad Anderson draped his arm around Okafor, but Okafor pushed him off.

“Ow, my shoulder!” he said.

Yes, he was able to climb the ladder and snip a bit of the net. But with the Connecticut fans roaring, he raised that piece with his left hand.

“Right now from our two physicians that are here, he will be fine by the end of the week,” Calhoun said.

He acknowledged, however, that Okafor will have an MRI exam. And it doesn’t take the CIA to know that no matter what the results show, the nation’s hottest team suddenly has an Okafor’s Heel.

“I felt it tingle more and more, then more and more discomfort,” Okafor said of the injury. “I play through all kinds of stuff, but I couldn’t feel my arm.”

Now it is his teammates who are struggling to get a grip.

“We’re talking about a guy who changes everything about the game,” teammate Josh Boone said.

Particularly the scoreboard.

When Okafor played Saturday, the Huskies outscored the Crimson Tide, 57-33.

When he was on the bench, the Huskies were outscored, 38-30.

When Okafor played, though it was only for 19 minutes, he led his team in rebounding (nine) and blocked more shots (five) than the rest of his team combined.

“If we really needed me, I would have gone back in, it didn’t matter how I felt,” Okafor said.

Believe him, because he is already playing hurt.

“I’d have to be dead to not play,” he said of the Final Four.

Believe him again, because Connecticut will be buried without him.

If indeed Okafor is suffering from more than a stinger, what happens next will be an interesting commentary about a tournament whose championship may rest on his shoulder.

Through the battered body of this million-dollar future NBA lottery pick, we may soon learn the worth of one shining moment.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. For previous Plaschke columns, go to latimes.com/plaschke.