Connor Essegian (born December 12, 2003) is an American

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

player for the

Nebraska Cornhuskers The Nebraska Cornhuskers (often abbreviated to Huskers) are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Nebraska–Lincoln. The university is a member of the Big Ten Conference and competes in NCAA Division I, fielding t ...

of the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

Early life and high school career

Essegian attended Central Noble High School in

Albion, Indiana Albion is a town in Albion and Jefferson townships, Noble County, in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 2,349 at the 2010 census. The city is the county seat of Noble County. History Albion was laid out in 1846. The town was named ...

, where he played basketball. As a sophomore, he led Central Noble to its first NECC Tournament in 50 years and its programs best overall record (22–5). That year he averaged 24.0 points, 7.9 rebounds and 2.2 steals per game. His 648 points scored during his sophomore campaign was this highest single season scoring total in Noble County history. As a junior, Essegian led the Cougars to a 20–1 record while averaging 24.0 points, 6.6 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 2.3 steals per game while shooting better than 41 percent from 3-point range. He scored a school record 44 points during the conference tournament quarterfinals. During his senior season, Connor averaged over 26 points per game (68% FG, 43% 3FG) and led Central Noble to the Indiana Class 2A state basketball championship game. Essegian finished his high school career as one of the most prolific scorers in Indiana state high school history placing 10th on the all–time list with 2,526 points, passing other Indiana high school greats like

Larry Bird Larry Joe Bird (born December 7, 1956) is an American former professional basketball player, coach, and executive in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "the Hick from French Lick" and "Larry Legend" Bird is widely regarded a ...

Shawn Kemp Shawn Travis Kemp Sr. (born November 26, 1969) is an American former professional basketball player who played for the Seattle SuperSonics, Cleveland Cavaliers, Portland Trail Blazers, and Orlando Magic in the National Basketball Association ( ...

Eric Gordon Eric Ambrose Gordon Jr. (born December 25, 1988) is a Bahamian-American professional basketball player for the Philadelphia 76ers of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In high school, he was named Indiana Mr. Basketball during his senio ...

Steve Alford Stephen Todd Alford (born November 23, 1964) is an American men's college basketball coach and former professional player who is the head coach for the Nevada Wolf Pack men's basketball, Nevada Wolf Pack of the Mountain West Conference (MWC). ...

and

Oscar Robertson Oscar Palmer Robertson (born November 24, 1938), nicknamed "the Big O", is an American former professional basketball player who played for the Cincinnati Royals and Milwaukee Bucks in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Robertson played ...

. Essegian was named one of five finalists for 2022 Indiana Mr. Basketball joining Travis Grayson, CJ Gunn, Fletcher Loyer and eventual winner Braden Smith.

Recruiting

Essegian received 32

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

offers. He trimmed his list down to seven and chose Wisconsin over

Butler A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments, with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantr ...

, Creighton,

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

, Wake Forest, Loyola (IL) and IPFW.

College career

Wisconsin

Freshman season

As a freshman, Essegian started the season coming off the bench as a 3-point specialist. Midway through the season, with the Badgers were dealing with injuries and the lack of scoring, coach

Greg Gard Gregory Glen Gard (born December 3, 1970) is an American college basketball coach for the Wisconsin Badgers. Gard took over on December 15, 2015, after Bo Ryan announced his retirement as head coach of the Badgers. Gard is a native of Cobb, Wisc ...

inserted Essegian into the starting lineup for Jordan Davis. Essegian then scored a career-high 24 points in a defeat to

Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...

. He finished the season as the Badgers third-leading scorer averaging 11.7 points per game. Essegian broke the Badgers freshman single-season 3-point record with 69 made threes surpassing

Brad Davison Bradley Davison (born April 22, 1999) is an American professional basketball player who plays for Obradoiro CAB of the LEB Oro. He played college basketball for the Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball, Wisconsin Badgers. Davison attended Maple G ...

's mark of 60 in 2018. Essegian was also named to the Big Ten All–Freshman team, becoming just the eighth Badgers to earn the honor. After his freshman season, Connor was invited to represent the Armenia men's national basketball team as they attempt to quality for the

2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup The 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup will be the 20th FIBA Basketball World Cup, the quadrennial international basketball championship contested by the men's national teams of FIBA. The tournament will be hosted in Qatar from 27 August to 12 Septem ...

Sophomore season

Essegian was expected to be a big part and a starter for the Badgers 2023–24 season. However, he was asked to come off the bench to start the season after the Badgers signed

AJ Storr AJ Storr (born August 26, 2003) is an American college basketball player for the Ole Miss Rebels. He previously played for the St. John's Red Storm, the Wisconsin Badgers, and the Kansas Jayhawks. Early life and high school career Storr was rais ...

in the

NCAA transfer portal The NCAA transfer portal is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) application, database, and compliance tool created to manage and facilitate the process for student athletes seeking to transfer between member institutions. It is i ...

from St. John's. The Badgers lacked bench scoring the previous season and this was a way for coach Gard to have a valuable scoring threat coming off the bench. Essegian's playing time was limited in his sophomore season due to an early season back injury and lackluster defense according to Gard.

Nebraska

Junior Season

On April 21, 2024, Essegian transferred to

Nebraska Nebraska ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Ka ...

. Essegian saw a big uptick in playing time with Nebraska compared to his sophomore season at Wisconsin. Despite coming off the bench for most of the season, Essegian was the Cornhuskers third leading scorer behind Brice Williams and Juwan Gary.

Career statistics

College

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2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

, style="text-align:left;",

Wisconsin Wisconsin ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest of the United States. It borders Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake Michigan to the east, Michig ...

, 35 , , 19 , , 27.4 , , .404 , , .359 , , .884 , , 3.7 , , 0.7 , , 0.5 , , 0.0 , , 11.7 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2023–24 , style="text-align:left;",

, 33 , , 0 , , 7.3 , , .385 , , .303 , , .909 , , 0.8 , , 0.2 , , 0.1 , , 0.0 , , 3.2 , - , style="text-align:left;", 2024–25 , style="text-align:left;",

, 30 , , 3 , , 22.5 , , .405 , , .393 , , .837 , , 2.8 , , 1.1 , , 0.5 , , 0.1 , , 10.7 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 98 , , 22 , , 19.2 , , .402 , , .365 , , .870 , , 2.5 , , 0.7 , , 0.4 , , 0.0 , , 8.5

Personal life

Essegian's parents are Rich and Jody Essegian. The cousin of Connor's grandfather is

MLB Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

hall of Famer

Robin Yount Robin R. Yount (; born September 16, 1955), nicknamed "the Kid" and "Rockin' Robin", is an American former professional baseball player. He spent his entire 20-year career in Major League Baseball as a shortstop and center fielder for the Milwauk ...

. Another cousin of Connor's grandfather is

Chuck Essegian Charles Abraham Essegian (born August 9, 1931) is an American former professional baseball left fielder. He appeared in 404 games played, games in Major League Baseball (MLB) over six seasons (1958–1963) for the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Lou ...

who played college football and baseball, played in the

1951 Rose Bowl The 1951 Rose Bowl was the 37th edition of the college football bowl game, played at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on Monday, January 1. The ninth-ranked Michigan Wolverines, champions of the Big Ten Conference, defeated the California ...

. He also played 6 seasons (1958–63) where he played in the

1959 World Series The 1959 World Series was the championship series of Major League Baseball's (MLB) 1959 season. The 56th edition of the World Series, it was a best-of-seven playoff that matched the National League (NL) champion Los Angeles Dodgers against the ...

with the

Los Angeles Dodgers The Los Angeles Dodgers are an American professional baseball team based in Los Angeles. The Dodgers compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (baseball), National League (NL) National League West, West Div ...

References

External links

Wisconsin Badgers bio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Essegian, Connor 2003 births Living people American men's basketball players Basketball players from Indiana Shooting guards Basketball players from Fort Wayne, Indiana Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball players 21st-century American sportsmen