Micah Shrewsberry concluded his first Notre Dame media day with a message to an Irish fan base that spent the last five basketball seasons bewildered at what had become of their once highly competitive program:
“Just come and watch. Don’t come in with any preconceived notions of what this team is, what this team may be, what people say this team is. Come make your own judgments about us,” Shrewsberry said.
What they are supposed to be is a cellar dweller—a team in transition with seven new players versus three holdovers (ex-deep reserves). A team with a combined six freshmen and sophomores. A team with three transfers—though that’s par for the course in modern college basketball and, notably, the same number Mike Brey’s final squad housed en route to an ignominious 3-17 ACC finish.
Shrewsberry’s Irish are picked last or second-to-last ahead of Louisville in the recently middling Atlantic Coast Conference.
But there is one element guaranteed to be present when the team first takes the floor for an exhibition against Niagara on November 6.
“I don’t coach effort, and I don’t have to. I don’t have to say a word about effort to these guys because they are playing extremely hard and compete,” Shrewsberry said.
That effort should manifest in two ways: defense and movement. Ball movement, player movement. Constant movement.
“I want them to have the freedom to take shots, but also know that we’re looking for great shots not average, not just okay, we are hunting for a great shot at every possession,” Shrewsberry added. “And I’ll show those guys clips, ‘hey this is just an okay shot, right? You could probably make this, but let’s continue to move basketball and hunt for great.’
“And we emphasize that. There’s days when that ball is popping and moving, and guys are turning down shots for an extra pass. Or attacking the close-out…
“These are cutting unbelievably hard. They’re cutting and playing with a great pace…we’re out for the best shot for Notre Dame—whether that’s at 28 seconds on shot clock, or that’s two seconds on the shot clock. Whenever Notre Dame can get the best shot and a great shot, we’re gonna take it.”
TODAY’S ROTATION? PROBABLY NOT THE SAME AS TOMORROW’S
Is there a given in Shrewsberry’s early-season rotation? Freshman point guard Markus Burton seems likely—otherwise who’s the point guard? Penn State transfer Kebbe Njie proved capable as a freshman under Shrewsberry last fall. And Northwestern transfer Julian Roper II has 44 games under his belt.
Givens on Day 1 are not on Day 5, 10, or 15, however.
“You have to earn your spot every single day. There is nobody sitting there sitting happy and getting satisfied. Like if you don’t come and perform, the next dude is taking your spot if you don’t play the right way,” said Shrewsberry. “You have to have that competition. And that’s what we’ve been about—really this whole fall, this whole pre-season. We’ve switched teams from day to day, we’ve thrown different combinations together, we’ve played with different combinations.
“One so they’re comfortable with each other…comfortable knowing with each other what they like to do. But also on the whim that one guy is not playing the way he’s supposed to play, I have no problem sitting (him) down next to me, and putting somebody else in there that’s just as capable.
“I you’re not getting the job done…come have a seat. I’m big on accountability,” Shrewsberry added. “So you got to be able to do those things, you got to be able to do your job. You’re gonna make mistakes, they’re gonna make mistakes, but if one guy’s not capable of doing his job and somebody else is, that guy’s gonna play.”
How many will play?
“it takes effort to play in the way I want play,” said Shrewsberry. “You got to guard as hard as possible for 30 seconds at a time, then you gotta go hit somebody, and go defend the three….get to the right play in transition, get to the corners.
‘Then you got to sprint. And we’re talking about movement in the half-court. It takes a lot of effort, so you need more guys to do it.
“We (have) 10 guys to go against each other every day in practice. I feel comfortable putting all 10 and playing that way,” he said. “Now it’s got to be the right combination. You can’t have not as many ball handlers out there as guys that can shoot, or you got to mix and match. So I think you’ll see some different things. Different numbers might differ from night to night.”
Significant changes indeed for the next era at Notre Dame.