Butler basketball commit Connor Turnbull looks to make an immediate impact with the Bulldogs in the 2022-23 season
O’FALLON, Mo. (BVM) — Connor Turnbull, a 6-foot-10 center from O’Fallon, Missouri, is one of Butler’s first commits for its 2022 recruiting class. In his breakout junior season, Turnbull averaged 14.8 points per contest over 30 games with a high of 25 points coming against Pattonville and Liberty at the end of the season. However, his breakout season was something Turnbull built his way up to.
Turnbull’s love for basketball began when he was in the sixth grade when he and some of his hometown friends started an AAU team.
“In middle school, I started taking it a little bit more seriously,” Turnbull said. “In sixth grade, I enjoyed it a lot because I ended up finding a local team and had a bunch of fun with them and really fell in love with it.”
From there, the 6-foot-10 Center continued to develop his game. He attends Fort Zumwalt North, which is one of four Fort Zumwalt schools in O’Fallon — a suburb of St. Louis. Turnbull began his basketball career on the JV team his freshman year.
His time on junior varsity was short lived as he was moved up to varsity before his sophomore season began. Turnbull gained minimal playing time, but his experience travelling and practicing with the varsity team helped him adjust for his junior season.
“High school has given me a lot more experience in actual game situations,” Turnbull said. “It’s not like AAU where you go in and warm up for a game. Everything is more like a routine and I’ve really gotten to fall in love with the routine of getting ready for games and practices and doing stuff as a team.”
Travelling, practicing and even eating meals as a team helps build a bond needed in high school sports. It is more important for this bond in high school, where the rosters change every year, compared to AAU basketball where the teams remain almost identical from years past.
Getting used to the routine of sanctioned high school basketball not only helped Turnbull put up impressive stats during his junior year, but also helped Ft. Zumwalt North improve as they finished with an impressive 27-4 record in 2020-2021 compared to its 20-10 record the year before. Turnbull also helped Ft. Zumwalt North go 5-1 against its other Ft. Zumwalt rivals.
Despite Turnbull’s steady success over his junior campaign, it took him some time to get recruited by many basketball programs. However, once he was on the map, his stock skyrocketed.
“I think that the hardest thing is talking to the first college,” Turnbull said. “I had never spoken to a college until I started talking to Butler. Once Butler started showing a lot of interest, I started to get a lot more interest from other schools as well.”
He received five offers in the span of two weeks once Butler approached him with an offer. After the Bulldogs offered him a spot, more local Division I programs such as Kansas State, Missouri and Saint Louis also offered him a scholarship spot.
Turnbull committed to Butler on July 1 and there were a few driving factors as to why the Missouri native chose the small Indianapolis school.
One reason was that Turnbull felt a connection to the school and the people there, including the coaches and players. There was no more of a compelling factor, however, than to play in the Big East.
“To be honest, I’m really excited to play in the Big East because the competition is so good,” Turnbull said. “I just want to play the best players I can play and see where I match up against them. I wanted to play basketball at the highest level I could play and I feel like the Big East is the best place I could possibly do that at.”
As a center, Turnbull knows he will be fighting for playing time with junior John Michael Malloy as well as senior Bryce Golden — if he returns for a fifth year. But this does not phase the incoming center.
“I really want to get to know everybody, and I really want to get my body right,” Turnbull said. “Going in, I know he’s [Bryce Golden] a great player and that I’m going to have to work to be able to play. I want to play as much as I can from the jump.”
For the 2021-2022 season, Butler has multiple returning starters, including Aaron Thompson, Bryce Nze and Jair Bolden. However, as Butler looks towards the 2022-2023 season, they need to reload, and Turnbull is a good start for the Bulldogs.
