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

college basketball In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...

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 the Cornhuskers compete in NCAA Divis ...

of the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference) is the oldest Division I collegiate athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Faculty Representati ...

Early life and high school career

Essegian attended

Central Noble High School Central Noble High School is a public high school in the town of Albion, Indiana, United States. It is the high school for the Central Noble Community Schools. Students from Albion Elementary, Wolf Lake Elementary, and Central Noble Middle School ...

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 a ...

, 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 may refer to: *Shawn (given name) *Shawn (surname) See also * Sean * Shaun Shaun is an anglicized spelling of the Irish name Seán. Alternative spellings include Shawn, Sean and Shawne. Notable persons with the given name include: Peop ...

Eric Gordon Eric Ambrose Gordon Jr. (born December 25, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). In high school, he was named "Mr. Basketball" of Indiana during his senior year ...

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 of the Mountain West Conference (MWC). Born and raised in Indiana, he was a ...

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 The Indiana Mr. Basketball honor recognizes the top high school basketball player in the state of Indiana. The award is presented annually by ''The Indianapolis Star''. The first Indiana Mr. Basketball was George Crowe of Franklin High School in ...

joining Travis Grayson, CJ Gunn, Fletcher Loyer and eventual winner

Braden Smith Braden Smith (born March 25, 1996) is an American football offensive tackle for the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League (NFL). He played college football at Auburn. Early years A native of Olathe, Kansas, Smith attended Olathe S ...

Recruiting

Essegian received 32

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

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 pantry. Some a ...

, Creighton,

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

, 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 Wisco ...

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

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. 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 Brad Davison (born April 22, 1999) is an American basketball player who currently plays for BC Nevėžis of the Lietuvos krepšinio lyga, Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL). He played college basketball for the Wisconsin Badgers men's basketball ...

'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 The Armenian national basketball team (, ''Hayastani basketboli azgayin havak'akan'') is the national basketball team representing Armenia. The national team is directed by the Basketball Federation of Armenia. Since 2006, the President of the f ...

as they attempt to quality for the

2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup The 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup will be the 20th tournament of the FIBA Basketball World Cup for men's national basketball teams. The tournament will be hosted in Qatar and will be the third to feature 32 teams. It will be the first FIBA Bask ...

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 in the

NCAA transfer portal The NCAA transfer portal is a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) application, database, and compliance tool launched on October 15, 2018, to manage and facilitate the process for student athletes seeking to transfer between member 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 state in the Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by South Dakota to the north; Iowa to the east and Missouri to the southeast, both across the Missouri River; Kansas to the south; Colorado to the southwe ...

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 b ...

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

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

, 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 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 68 , , 19 , , 17.7 , , .400 , , .345 , , .887 , , 2.3 , , 0.5 , , 0.3 , , 0.0 , , 7.6

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 organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

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 Milwau ...

. 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 in Major League Baseball (MLB) over six seasons (1958–1963) for the Philadelphia Phillies, St. Louis Cardinals, L ...

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 Go ...

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

1959 World Series The 1959 World Series featured the National League champion Los Angeles Dodgers beating the American League champion Chicago White Sox, 4–2. Each of the three games played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum drew record crowds, Game 5's atte ...

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 (NL) West division. Established in 1883 in the city of Brooklyn ...

References

External links

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