Notre Dame Basketball: Pat Connaughton stars in 2020 dunk contest

Former Notre Dame Irish basketball star Pat Connaughton shined in the 2020 NBA slam dunk competition, despite not winning the event.

Anyone familiar with former Notre Dame basketball player Pat Connaughton isn’t surprised by his freakish athletic ability. A former three-sport athlete who played both basketball and baseball for the Irish, set social media ablaze last night with his performance at the AT&T Slam Dunk Contest as part of the 2020 NBA All-Star weekend.

Connaughton, who was a high school football star, a fourth-round draft pick of the Baltimore Orioles in the 2014 Major League Baseball draft, and a second-round draft pick by the Brooklyn Nets in the 2015 NBA draft put his athleticism on full display in the annual dunk competition.

Initially coming out in his standard NBA uniform, Connaughton would proceed to pull off a dunk in which he jumped over reigning NBA MVP and All-Star captain Giannis Antetokounmpo. While missing the first attempt, he was able to slam home the second attempt.

He performed the dunk while grabbing the ball from above the head of his Milwaukee Bucks teammate in the midst of jumping over the 6’11” “Greek Freak”. His first dunk wouldn’t be the last time that he would dunk over a reigning MVP that evening.

Connaughton would bring out the reigning Major League Baseball MVP, Christian Yelich, to assist with his second dunk. Appearing in the classic style from the iconic 1992 basketball movie “White Men Can’t Jump”, wearing an outfit that resembled that of Woody Harrelson’s character Billy Hoyle.

For the second dunk, Connaughton would have Yelich hold the ball over his head, while he ran from behind the Milwaukee Brewers star outfielder and lept over him while grabbing the basketball out of Yelich’s hands mid-air to dunk the ball in a fashion that mimicked a dunk from the early 1990s movie.

The former Notre Dame star would successfully dunk the ball on his first attempt jumping over Yelich. He would accentuate what was an incredible move by hanging on the rim in a fashion similar to what Harrelson’s character did in the movie.

Unfortunately for Connaughton, the judges would give him a score of only 45 for the dunk, causing him to be defeated by Aaron Gordon of the Orlando Magic in his first-round matchup. The crowd felt that Connaughton deserved a better score than he received and rained boos down upon the judges.

In robbing Connaughton of the opportunity to advance to the second round of the contest, the judges denied the crowd from seeing what would have been a more impressive dunk attempt in the second round.

According to Christian Yelich, the next dunk attempt would have included Connaughton wearing a baseball glove on one hand and catching a baseball thrown by Yelich while in mid-air and completing a dunk in the process.

While it is unfortunate that the fans were denied the opportunity to witness what would have been an incredible feat, the former Notre Dame star made a name for himself with casual NBA fans and did well enough that perhaps he will be invited back next year to attempt the dunk that he was denied the opportunity to attempt this year.