By Mike Grenier
staff writer
—
St. John's Prep standout athlete Pat Connaughton has always had confidence in his basketball skills, but the one thing he hadn't been able to figure out was whether he could play for any of the premier college basketball programs in the country.
Connaughton, 17, would watch big-time games on TV and be impressed with the physical style of play. It was one thing to be athletic, but these players already had NBA bodies while they were in college.
"The mistake I always made was that I would see these guys play and they were so big and strong that I didn't know whether I'd be able to play with them," said Connaughton, who is about to enter his senior year at St. John's. "But I was looking at it through the eyes of a young high school kid. The players I was watching were 20 years old and had spent a lot of time to look the way they did."
Connaughton, who is just a shade under 6-foot-5, is still getting there physically, but last week in Orlando, Fla., he erased all doubts about whether he could compete with the top players in the nation. As a result, he has suddenly become one of the hottest prospects in the country and the Division 1 scholarship offers are piling up.
Playing for the Middlesex Magic AAU team in the U17 national championships and in a separate showcase event, Connaughton averaged 30.4 points, 21 rebounds, six assists and two blocked shots in a whirlwind 12-game stretch. The Magic posted an 8-4 record.
"Nobody in the tournament played any better," said Magic coach Mike Crotty. "Nobody on the opposing teams knew what to do with him."
College coaches knew exactly what to do with Connaughton — make him a high priority.
In a development that stunned Connaughton himself, last season's Salem News Player of the Year received scholarships offers from the following schools: Notre Dame, UCLA, Tennessee, Wake Forest, Florida, Penn State and Northwestern. Crotty added that Marquette, Iowa State and Colorado are also in the mix "100 percent." Technically, these were all unofficial offers at the time, but as of Monday, schools could follow up with phone calls that made it official.
"I've never seen anyone's stock rise that quickly," said St. John's Prep coach Sean Connolly, who had advised Connaughton that this could be a huge summer for him. "Before Pat went down there, the one D-1 school that was offering him a scholarship was Vermont. Some mid-majors liked him, too. But who wouldn't want the choices he has now? All of this seems like it came out of nowhere, but he put a lot of time and effort into it. And this won't go to his head."
Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey made it a point to show up for Connaughton's games. Meanwhile, Tennessee's Bruce Pearl was supposedly checking out one of his own recruits when he heard that Connaughton was tearing it up, so he thought he should check out this Massachusetts kid. Other schools like UCLA and Florida sent high-level assistant coaches to watch Connaughton.
"Spectacular," Crotty said of Connaughton's performance. "He was the talk of the tournament. He's got to be among the top 100 players in the country, hands down."
Connaughton called the Florida experience perhaps the most hectic week of his life. It was probably also the most rewarding in the sense that it clarified his future. If you had asked him two weeks ago, he was still puzzled. He could have accepted a Division 1 baseball scholarship with the hope that he'd also play basketball, but now basketball is his No. 1 college sport.
"It's been overwhelming," said Connaughton, who lives in Arlington. "I thought I'd end up at some mid-major school and be able to play two sports, but I had a good week down (in Florida) and everything has changed. Notre Dame came to see me play and I played well and then all these other schools started coming to our games. It just spread like wildfire. I really couldn't believe it."
When more coaches from big-time schools started flocking to the Middlesex Magic games, Connaughton's teammates wanted to inform him who was there. But Connaughton told them to withhold the information until the game had concluded.
"I wouldn't let them tell me," said Connaughton. "I tried not to pay attention to who was there as much as possible. If anything, I tried to use it to fuel my motivation. I wasn't going to let it affect me in a negative way."
Connaughton has scheduled his first official recruiting visit at Notre Dame the weekend of Sept. 10. The Notre Dame football team, which, ironically, is coached by St. John's Prep graduate Brian Kelly, hosts Michigan the next day.
This weekend Connaughton will be playing in the Area Code baseball showcase in Long Beach, Calif., so he said he'll use the opportunity to make an unofficial visit to UCLA.
No matter what school he settles on for basketball, he still wants to play baseball, too.
"I've talked to different schools and they've said I'd be able to play baseball," said Connaughton, who also excels in the classroom as an A/B student at St. John's. "I'd be pitching once every five days. I realize there's mandatory stuff I would do in the offseason for basketball, but baseball is still (in the plan)."
After working on his strength and conditioning at Athletic Evolution in Woburn this summer, Connaughton also displayed improved ballhandling skills and a better three-point shot for the games in Florida. Defensively, he guarded players who ranged from 6-3 to 6-8. That probably didn't faze him since he had to defend 6-10 Carson Desrosiers of Central Catholic last season. Desrosiers was a major recruit who ended up committing to Wake Forest, where he'll be a freshman this season.
In order to showcase his versatility in Florida, Crotty had some set plays that enabled Connaughton to dunk. Crotty isn't wild about the dunk per se, but he knew college coaches would want to see Connaughton's entire repertoire.
"We wanted to show that he could play above the rim," said Crotty. "It's not so much the dunk itself as the explosiveness (that's important). I had more than one coach say, 'hey, this kid is really explosive, too.'"
John Dullea of Peabody, who is one of Connolly's assistant coaches at St. John's, has been following Connaughton's progress all along.
"What's happening is really incredible," said Dullea. "All these big schools are falling in love with him and it's a testament to all the work he's put into it. He's a great kid who comes from a great family and we couldn't be happier for him."
If he can squeeze in all of his desired official visits shortly after school starts in September, Connaughton would like to make his college decision by the middle of the fall. He doesn't want any distractions once the St. John's Prep hoop season begins.
"I know it'll be different next season (as a higher profile targeted player), but I'm looking forward to it," said Connaughton. "My main goal is still a state championship for our team."
