Major League Baseball

Notre Dame's Pat Connaughton focusing on basketball over Baltimore Orioles

Published May. 18, 2015 12:09 a.m. ET

foxsports

Notre Dame basketball player Pat Connaughton is a man with options. The 22-year-old is in Chicago for the NBA Draft, telling reporters that he will focus on basketball and put baseball on the backburners:

“I’m here. It’s all basketball. I’m trying to get the word out there that I’m two feet in, I’m 100 percent in. If I was one foot in, I wouldn’t be in because I’d be trying to make millions and millions of dollars playing baseball right now. Until I don’t make an NBA roster, I’m looking to be an NBA basketball player.”

The Baltimore Orioles prospect has shown some promise, flashing a mid-90s fastball last summer. Some people might see his position as a positive, but he's finding it's tough to convince teams he can play:

“It’s funny. I’m in limbo. The baseball people are like, ‘Oh, he’s basketball athletic.’ The basketball people are like, ‘Well, he plays baseball, so he’s probably not that athletic.’ So I’m in limbo. The baseball scouts dropped me to draft me in the fourth round because they were worried about basketball. All the basketball scouts don’t want to draft me because they’re worried about baseball. So it’s just a matter of getting the word out there that I’m here to play basketball and I’m hopefully as athletic as anybody here in this combine."

(h/t NESN)