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Winona State University is well known for their defensive skills on their men’s basketball team. Among these highly defensive players, Connor Dillon is a one-man army in terms of scoring points for the team.
Dillon started his journey with basketball at a very young age with his dad and his twin brother Declan Dillon, who is also a large asset for the team. He had his brother on his side throughout his journey from childhood to their high school team at Peoria Notre Dame and to college as they decided to become Warriors together.
- Dillon used to play soccer as well. However, he found himself enjoying the more competitive aspect in basketball, which helped him find his passion for the game. His family was always supportive of his decisions and helped him to become what he is today.
He was recognized by several different teams in his junior year of high school. He always kept his options open and looked for colleges in his area. His main reason for choosing Winona State was the priority he was recieving from the staff.
- Dillon committed to Winona State with the intent to major in Business Administration and will be graduating this semester after four successful years academically and athletically.
His journey to Winona State started during the year of COVID-19. That year the team played only ten matches which restricted him from getting a chance to truly showcase his talents.
His second season began with great hope and new inspiration. He was destined to make an impact on the team and was given an opportunity to play in the first four games as well. Unfortunately, he suffered a sprained ankle injury while practicing and the season had almost ended by the time he recovered from the injury.
In his third season, Winona State had quite the fourth-year team that was confident in their ability to make it to nationals. C. Dillon had to share the locker room with two of the teams most successful players, Luke Martins and Owen King, who are both highly skilled. As the season progressed, he managed to show his skills and make his name among these big players.
That season, C. Dillon played all 27 games for the team and scored 505 points. He not only displayed his skills but also earned the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC) player of the week. The team could unfortunately not make it to the final games of the NSIC, but he certainly made a statement that a new star of the team is rising.
“Connor knows how to be in the spotlight,” Head Coach Todd Eisner said. “He has a great future ahead.”
This season portrayed the importance of C. Dillon. From the beginning, he was the main attacker of the team and it did not take long for the opponent teams to notice that. From the beginning of NSIC, he was consistently guarded by the opponent’s best defender.
This scoring dependency on C. Dillon had cost the Warriors multiple matches. Later, when others also started taking charges, he performed at his best and brought the matches home. Connor played all the games for the team and scored 670 points.
“I think we had a lot of ups and downs but towards the end of the season, we kind of found ourselves and it was just a great end of the year for us,” C. Dillon said.
Besides practice and matches, C.Dillon likes to spend time with his friends. He also enjoys travelling with his team to different schools.
Now he is looking for his desired graduate school. He is attempting to get into Division I colleges which will hopefully allow his career in basketball to grow. There is no doubt that the basketball team will miss the star players when he is gone and will need to take a significant amount of time to find a worthy replacement for him.
