MADISON — In Connor Essegian’s freshman year, he was the Badgers’ resident sniper. A sharpshooter whose offensive prowess ultimately earned him a starting role, he quickly became one of Wisconsin’s most exciting scorers.

His sophomore campaign, however, started off with a back injury in Wisconsin’s season opener against Arkansas State. Injured and no longer in the starting five, Essegian found himself in what head coach Greg Gard described as a “funk,” especially on the defensive end.

“That was something I’ve never really had, an injury that held me out for that long,” Essegian said. “That was definitely something that kinda changed it a little bit, the adversity.”

The guard played a handful of minutes in each game following the injury, but simply wasn’t himself. His silky stroke from downtown didn’t produce the results the Badgers have grown accustomed to; in the first month of the season, Essegian shot a mere 18.8 percent from three.

It wasn’t just the shooting, the defining characteristic of Essegian’s game, that was off. The sophomore’s defense took a turn for the worse. Puzzlingly, he seemed to regress in that category from his freshman season.

Gard and the Badgers run an extremely fundamentals-based program. If you can’t play defense, you won’t play, period. Essegian was prone to defensive breakdowns early in the year. Perhaps no sequence was more emblematic of his struggles than in the second half against Jacksonville State in mid-December. The guard checked into the game for the first time, immediately gave up a backdoor cut to the rim for an easy lay, and was subsequently pulled.

It seemed to have a snowball effect for Essegian, who admitted his uncharacteristically cold jump shot was tied to his slumping defense.

“I would say it impacts your confidence. Everyone says defense leads to offense. If I’m playing hard on defense and getting it done, it’ll just come more naturally on the offensive end,” he said.

Nothing seemed to be going right for Essegian, but by all accounts, he handled his struggles in an extremely professional way.

“I think the most important thing is, he mentally has stayed in a really good place,” Gard said. “He hasn’t gotten into woe is me or feeling sorry for himself; he’s taken on the challenge of, hey I gotta get better and here’s how I do that and how I need to do that, and staying positive with it.”

After being one of the stars of last year’s team, Essegian has been pushed to a bench role by a combination of Wisconsin’s improved depth and his early-season struggles. Again, he seemingly hasn’t let that take a toll on his psyche.

“When you get new things thrown at you, it’s always how you respond and how you use it and attack it. Using that as motivation to push myself to get better and be the best, coming in and being a spark that I can be. The more I can do that, the more I can help carry this team to the next level,” he said.

Recently, however, something has clicked for the guard. When Big Ten play resumed for Wisconsin against Iowa on Jan. 2, Essegian didn’t play. But since that game, he’s looked like the electric shooter Badger fans fell in love with a season ago. Since conference play resumed, Essegian is shooting 52 percent from the field and 44.4 percent from downtown. Despite averaging only 6.9 minutes, he’s found his swagger once again.

Essegian’s teammates were critical in helping him work through his slump. This is a team that’s been characterized by having a selfless offense on the court, and those same qualities appear to carry over to the locker room.

“He kinda just looked back and leaned on us a little bit,” point guard Chucky Hepburn said. “We were able to pick him up, and we all have the biggest faith in him in the world, we all believe in him, we know what he’s capable of. He just has to go out there and show it.”

“They were just telling me to stick with it,” Essegian said of his teammates. “They were just saying that they had my back the whole time. And that was just huge for me just to know that even when I was messing up, the guys still believed in me and wanted me to succeed as well.”

The rest of the team was there for Essegian emotionally, but there was physical work to be done as well.

“He’s put extra time in with (strength and conditioning coach) Jim (Snider) in the weight room, and some conditioning and extra treadmill work and some things that, trying to get his body better. He’s put more time in with our staff, shooting and doing some extra things to get himself back in rhythm,” Gard said. “I’ve told him all along, we need you. But we’ve gotta get you up to where you need to be and where you can be.”

“Just trusting my work that I put in,” Essegian added. “Getting up shots every day. Doing what I do that got me to this point is what keeps me going.”

Whether or not the sophomore can keep up his recent blistering shooting remains to be seen. But over the past month, Essegian has reminded the Badgers just how vital his presence can be as a sharpshooter off the bench. He’s the kind of player that, when operating at full capacity, can be the difference between a team that goes home the first weekend of the NCAA tournament and the team that makes a deep run.

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