Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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year with Brey and the gang was a 21-point outburst at Villanova on Feb. 18 that helped the Irish secure a 74-70 overtime victory. His seven three-pointers were the most by an Irish freshman since Chris Thomas also drained seven triples against Rutgers on Feb. 6, 2002. "When you look back on it, when the basketball season was over, I couldn't have asked for a better in- troduction to Notre Dame basketball as a freshman," Connaughton said. "Coach Brey doesn't usually play un- derclassmen, let alone freshmen. Be- ing able to start and having a few big games and being one of the heavy contributors, I couldn't have asked for anything more." He didn't even ask for a break be- ponents to a .225 batting average and struck out 19 in 19 innings, plans to perfect personality of a kid to do it. He came in seamlessly with our team like he hadn't even been gone. Aca- demically he's good enough to where he's able to do that and balance it. All year long he has another big demand on his time. It's remarkable that he can do it." Connaughton, who has held op- it," Aoki said of Connaughton's new- found stardom. "We were pulling the tarp and I said, 'They don't have this in hoops, do they?' He doesn't have any big-time in him. I think his par- ents would beat the crap out of him if he did. He still has a lot to learn, but it's not hard when his first pitch out of the gate is 93 [miles per hour]." Connaughton takes it all in stride. "We give him a little grief about "IT'S LIKE THE PERFECT PERSONALITY OF A KID TO DO IT. HE CAME IN SEAMLESSLY WITH OUR TEAM LIKE HE HADN'T EVEN BEEN GONE." IRISH BASEBALL HEAD COACH MIK AOKI ON CONNAUGHTON fore embarking on his rookie base- ball season, when he became the 66th player in Notre Dame history to suit up for both sports, and the first in nearly four decades. According to Perfect Game, Con- naughton is the No. 4 Major League Baseball prospect in the Big East. He's rated as the No. 29 overall fresh- man in the country and the No. 15 rookie pitcher by Baseball America. Connaughton was drafted in the 38th round of the 2011 MLB First-Year Player Draft by the San Diego Padres after posting an 11-2 record, a 1.75 ERA and 160 strikeouts in 90 innings pitched as a prep senior. Second-year Irish skipper Mik Ao- ki's previous stop was at Boston Col- lege, where he first caught wind of the hard-throwing right-hander and offered Connaughton a scholarship. Once Aoki was in South Bend, Brey thing about Pat Connaughton," Aoki recalled. "I said, 'Yeah, I know every- thing about Pat Connaughton.' " Aoki said he knew that with Con- naughton being on basketball schol- arship, that's where the priority was. "You just kind of know the deal go- "Coach Brey asked if I knew any- do both as long as he can. In fact, he hopes there will be a tough deci- sion to make once he's done at Notre Dame. "If I were to review what I do in a very honest way, or if someone on the outside was looking in, you'd see I put a lot more time into basketball than I do baseball," he said. "When I look at it realistically, I'm a better baseball professional prospect than I am a basketball professional pros- pect. I've always been a kid that kind of tries to defy the odds. "I didn't have any Division I schol- arship offers [in basketball] until af- ter the summer after my junior year. Then all of the sudden they started coming in. I guess that's a little ap- pealing to me, seeing if I can get drafted in basketball." Already he's become a household same amount of points that I did against West Virginia [zero in two games] in my career, which is kind of funny because it's true," he said. "My teammates have been great and have really accepted me coming in late. I feel bad stepping on somebody's toes when I come in to pitch when some guys have been working on it all year. But it has been great." They're also quick to praise his ac- complishments. "I don't know what he does to get "They always say they scored the began to inquire about the dual-sport star. name among Irish fans. Though an out-of-control ego doesn't seem to be an issue for Connaughton, his coaches and teammates make sure to keep him grounded. into the mental state he gets in, but nothing affects him ever," said fifth- year senior forward Tim Abromaitis, whose season-ending knee injury in November opened up a spot for Con- naughton in the starting lineup, after the Syracuse game. "He's just solid out there. He gets to loose balls, hits threes when he's open and he's just a guy you can count on out there, which is really special for a fresh- man. … I think he's going to be a great player." ✦ Dribbling To The Diamond ing in," he said. "It's [Brey's] scholar- ship money, not ours. It's like Christ- mas in late March or early April, depending on how [the basketball team] does." Connaughton was welcomed by the rest of the baseball team, even though the squad was 18 games into the season. "He's obviously an exceptionally athletic kid," Aoki said. "It's like the www.BLUEANDGOLD.com ships to divide up to fill its roster, Gibbons looked for basketball players that could also play baseball. • Gibbons brought in 6-6 basketball player/pitcher Ron Reed in 1962, though Reed played baseball only as a senior in 1965. He was a first-round draft pick and played two years with the Detroit Pistons before starting a 19-year career in MLB. team's unexpected 22-12 record and his role as a rookie guard to help shock critics. He had to take the hill for the Fighting Irish baseball team and see if he could crack the starting rotation for that squad as well. Connaughton, a right-handed pitcher, quickly emerged as a weekend starter this spring. Playing both basketball and baseball is a rarity at Notre Dame. Connaughton is the 66th Notre Dame student- athlete to compete in both baseball and basketball, and the first to do so since Tom Hansen during the 1973-74 academic year. Here's a look at a couple other combo athletes that came before him: • Jim Gibbons was a three-year starter at guard for Notre Dame (1950-52). He was also a pitcher/ outfielder on the diamond. One of his two-sport teammates was Dick Rosenthal, who later played in the NBA. A few years after graduation, Gibbons was the part-time assistant coach for both basketball and baseball. He was the primary recruiter for both teams. Partly because of his own two-sport background, and partly because baseball had only two scholar- Freshman Pat Connaughton had very little time to sit and reflect on the Notre Dame men's basketball — Wes Morgan MAY 2012 53