After his freshman year in college at Villanova, O'Connor transferred to Saint Joseph's, where he was an all-conference selection in all of his three seasons there, and won the Robert V. Geasey Trophy as the best basketball player in the Philadelphia Big 5 in 2001.
He went undrafted in the 2002 NBA draft and spent his only professional season with KK Partizan in Serbia, playing in the 2002–03 Euroleague.
[2] He attended Simon Gratz High School, where he was named a starter as a sophomore in 1994–95 by coach Bill Ellerbee.
[8] In O'Connor's senior season, he led the team in scoring in 10 out of 16 games during the Public League, including 39 points against Olney (a new career-high), 34 against Fels and 30 against Northeast.
[9] At the end of the year, O'Connor was named in the All-Public League and All-City First Teams,[6] after averaging 23.7 points per game.
[6] O'Connor was highly recruited in high school and received offers from several NCAA Division I programs, drawing interest from Clemson, Xavier, NC State, Miami (FL), Penn,[10] Penn State, Princeton,[8] Temple, UMass, and Villanova.
[2] As a true freshman at Villanova, O'Connor found little playing time under coach Steve Lappas, starting 5 out of 21 games, and scoring a season-high 12 points against Temple.
Head coach Phil Martelli immediately included O'Connor in the starting lineup, and he averaged 16.6 points, 4.4 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.1 steals per game in 31.5 minutes of playing time.
[11] On December 11, 2000, O'Connor scored a new career-high 32 points on 11/17 shooting against his former team, Villanova: the game ended with Saint Joseph's losing, 75–78.
[30] After a brief tryout with Italian Serie A team Virtus Bologna,[31] O'Connor signed a professional contract with KK Partizan in Belgrade, Serbia.