Notre Dame guard Braeden Shrewsberry wins ACC Rookie of the Week
After his 25-point outburst Tuesday at Georgia Tech, Notre Dame freshman Braeden Shrewsberry took home the Atlantic Coast Conference Men’s Basketball Rookie of the Week award. It’s the first weekly honor of his career.
Shrewsberry, the son of Irish head coach Micah Shrewsberry, is the second Notre Dame men’s basketball freshman to win ACC Rookie of the Week this season. Fellow guard Markus Burton won it on Jan. 2. On the women’s side, freshman guard Hannah Hidalgo has won the weekly honor a whopping eight times already — a program record.
In that career game against Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Shrewsberry went 7 of 12 from the field, including 5 of 9 from behind the three-point line. He also made all six of his free throws, including two big ones in the overtime period of Notre Dame’s 75-68 victory.
Shrewsberry built on his 12-point, 4-of-7 three-point-shooting performance in a loss Duke on Jan. 6, pulling the trigger from downtown with confidence and not rushing himself or getting sped up. He nearly won the game for the Irish in regulation, sinking a huge three with 1:22 remaining to give his team a 63-61 lead and later hitting two clutch free throws with 16.9 seconds to play in regulation.
“I think I was just playing with a lot of confidence,” Shrewsberry said Thursday. “I hit a couple shots early and that really sparked me for the rest of the night. And then, my teammates just finding me and giving me open looks made it really easy.”
In Notre Dame’s second game this week, a 67-58 loss to Florida State on Saturday, Shrewsberry didn’t score as much — he finished with 8 points — but he made his buckets count. He made a shot from beyond the arc with 2:24 remaining to shrink the Seminoles’ lead down to four, then another one with 1:25 left to close the gap to just three.
Micah Shrewsberry has taken criticism for playing his son, which both he and Braeden know is unwarranted. The younger Shrewsberry had never played for his dad before this season, but his dad knows how helpful he can be on both ends of the court.
“Whether he makes shots or doesn’t, he’s on the scouting report as a shooter,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “His ability to just be guarded while just being out there, it’s very functional for Markus Burton to get to the basket and get layups. There’s value to spacing. And Braeden’s a great cutter. He has a really high basketball IQ. He’s a very good system defender. He knows our system defensively, and he does his job.”
Braeden Shrewsberry and the Irish are back in action against Boston College at 7 p.m. ET on Monday in Chestnut Hill, Mass.
