How Connor Essegian flourished into a freshman starter

Madison - Connor Essegian’s shooting form is a thing of beauty. It’s fluid, repeatable, and the ball looks like it’s going in every time it leaves his hand. But contrary to what it may look like, Essegian wasn’t born splashing contested threes.

“I used to be a terrible shooter,” Essegian quipped.

Wisconsin’s freshman revelation has been an elite sniper in what has been an otherwise lethargic offense. He’s tied for the most made threes on the team with Chucky Hepburn at 42 apiece. His 43 percent shooting from downtown has, at times, single-handedly kept the Badgers in games.

Growing up in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Essegian never had a personal trainer or a shooting coach. “It was really just a want and a drive to be better at it, and getting up, literally it was 1,000 shots everyday, almost everyday, through middle school and high school,” he told BadgerBlitz.com

Essegian carried a top-notch scoring pedigree into Madison as the 10th all-time leading scorer in Indiana high school basketball history. Coming out of high school and into offseason workouts, however, questions remained about how ready the young guard was to contribute. Was his long but still thin 6-foot-4-inch frame ready for the physicality of Big Ten basketball? Could he offer anything immediately other than spot-up shooting?

Over the course of about half of a season, those questions have been long since forgotten. Starting the year off as the second or third man off the bench, Essegian immediately surpassed expectations in the eyes of the coaching staff.

“After him coming in, we knew he was a great shooter coming out of high school,” assistant coach Sharif Chambliss said. “When he got here, obviously having the chance to watch him, man. He does it and he does it at a high level.”

“It” has manifested into many things for the freshman. Essegian has obviously had immediate success shooting the ball, but he’s been a more-than-willing rebounder. In the last game he entered as a bench player on Jan. 14 against Indiana, Essegian asserted himself on the glass, gobbling up 11 rebounds. He’s proven to be an elite cutter off the ball, adept at finding the open space on the court.

Only 20 games into his collegiate career, Essegian is unpolished, far from a finished product. But his basketball IQ, confidence and scoring have helped him earn precious minutes, minutes he hasn’t relinquished.

“He just has a knack for the ball,” Chambliss said. “And I don’t think it’s something you can teach.”

Wisconsin entered the season knowing they were low on depth. A variety of circumstances left the Badgers’ bench rather bare, and it certainly didn’t help that Johnny Davis (and two of his 2020 recruiting classmates) had already departed from the program. With a starting five seemingly locked in early, Wisconsin’s top bench players were slated to be Carter Gilmore, Green Bay transfer Kamari McGee, and the true freshman Essegian.

Essegian played modest minutes through Wisconsin’s first three games. Then the Badgers traveled to the Bahamas for the Battle 4 Atlantis. Nothing like three games in three days to test your depth.

“Honestly I wasn’t really sure when it was gonna come,” Essegian said regarding when he knew he would be a significant part of the rotation. “It did kinda start in Atlantis, when we were playing in that. I just got in, and really just tried to play ball.”

And play ball he did. Essegian came to life in the second round against No. 2 Kansas, scoring 17 points with three made triples on 50 percent shooting. He then shot 4-of-6 from downtown the next day, playing 25 minutes against USC. But as exhilarating as that tournament was, nothing compares to the lights of Big Ten basketball.

“Playing Illinois (the first time) was kinda an awakening moment for me. That’s when I really felt the physicality…and the defense and really how the Big Ten and how the speed is.”

As Big Ten basketball wore on, and Wisconsin began to flounder as they grappled with injuries and an impotent offense, changes had to be made. One of those changes was staring them right in the face, from the first spot on their bench.

After Wisconsin got bullied by the Hoosiers at Assembly Hall, making them losers of three in a row, the lineup needed a shot of energy. Enter Essegian, exit Jordan Davis.

It was an extremely tough situation for Davis, for a multitude of reasons. No one likes being benched, but to be usurped in the starting five just a year after you watched your brother blossom into an NBA lottery pick on the same team must be profoundly disheartening.

“It’s not easy for anyone to be put in a situation like that, and I mean both of us, me or him. But I mean, it’s a brotherhood here. We care about each other, and that’s my boy,” Essegian said. “We have each other's backs, and we’re always just telling each other, let's just keep playing ball, let's just keep working together.”

Those who were near the situation indicate that it went about as smoothly as can be hoped for.

“Connor handled it graciously, and so did Jordan,” Chambliss said. “Jordan is pretty mature, and he’s matured a lot. He did a great job, I mean, he was in the starting lineup, out of the starting lineup, then he was back in again.”

Essegian has a firm grasp on his starting spot at this point, and is clearly one of the five best players on the Badgers already. His performance has left Greg Gard and company little choice but to play him heavily night in and night out.

While he’s overperformed and been a bright spot in a dark offense, Essegian knows his game is far from complete. He’s a great shooter, but not yet a great scorer — he isn’t proficient yet at creating for himself off his handle. He knows he needs to work on creating shots one-on-one.

Essegian’s defense isn’t quite there yet, either. It’s come a long way — “I couldn’t imagine me trying to guard some of these guys last year,” he said — but there’s work to be done.

“Defensively, he’s still learning, he has a long way to go on that, he knows it,” Chambliss said.

He does. And he’s an eager learner: “That (defense) can always get better, and I’ll continue to say that throughout my whole career.”

Wisconsin basketball as a whole isn’t in a great spot. They’re in the midst of a tailspin they seemingly can’t shake as their tournament dreams slowly fade away. Regardless, the future remains bright, and the true freshman is a big reason why.

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