Three takeaways from Micah Shrewsberry's ND summer update

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Micah Shrewsberry prefers to stick to shaking hands over swinging golf clubs.

The Notre Dame men’s basketball head coach didn’t participate in the golf portion of Tuesday’s Coaches vs. Cancer Golf Classic at Notre Dame’s Warren Golf Course, but he was still the face of a two-day Celebration of Hope that began Monday with a Night of the Stars at Four Winds Casino in South Bend, Ind. Ahead of his third season leading the Irish men’s basketball program, Shrewsberry has carried on the philanthropic mission of raising funds for the American Cancer Society that former head coach Mike Brey embraced during his time at Notre Dame.

“There’s not a person that hasn’t been touched at some point in time by somebody that they know,” Shrewsberry said of the fight against cancer. “Myself included. It’s big for our family. Something that’s important for us. It’s a fight everybody can get behind.”

Shrewsberry also discussed the summer progress made within his basketball program as the Irish look to recover from a forgettable 15-18 season following a 13-20 record in his first season at Notre Dame. These were my top three takeaways.

Shrewsberry wants to get back to basics

Micah Shrewsberry didn’t need to wait until the offseason to identify what he considered a mistake in how he prepared his team for last season. At various times throughout the season, Shrewsberry blamed himself for spending too much time trying to improve the team’s offense, which resulted in taking too many steps back defensively.

The Irish allowed 72.5 points per game during the 2024-25 season after limiting opponents to 67.2 points per game the previous season.

“For us it’s really getting back to the standards, getting back to the basics of who we want to be,” Shrewsberry said. “We spent a lot of time doing that this summer.

“We really focused on our defense, focused on our rebounding, focused on our toughness, our togetherness and everything else. Easy things to kind of fix and correct, but we spend a lot of time doing. I think you’ll see some improvements in that area.”

Shrewsberry pointed to the need to stay healthy as one of the biggest lessons from last season. That’s because his starting backcourt of Markus Burton, Braeden Shrewsberry and Matt Allocco only played together in 15 games due to injuries to all three of them throughout the season.

Notre Dame can attempt to improve injury prevention under new director of men’s basketball strength and conditioning Jon Sanderson. But the offseason work with Sanderson can be about much more than that.

“We’ve been a tougher team,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “That started on the court, but it started in the weight room with our new hire in Jon Sanderson. We have a culture of toughness just like we have a culture of hard work. When you see us play, that’s being displayed out there at all times on the court. That’s the biggest lesson for me. We’re gonna go back to who we were.”

Finding a different presence

The toughness Micah Shrewsberry wants out of his team can show up in a number of different ways when the 2025-26 season starts with exhibitions in October. Improved rebounding would be a good start.

The Irish averaged 35.09 rebounds per game last season, which ranked in the bottom half of Division I last season (No. 188 of 355). That number dipped to 33.8 in 20 regular season games against ACC opponents. The Irish ranked 10th in team rebounding in ACC play for a conference that only received four bids to the NCAA Tournament.

Notre Dame’s rebounding problems can’t simply be solved by bringing in graduate transfer Carson Towt, who led Division I in rebounding last season with 12.4 per game at Northern Arizona last season. But the 6-foot-8, 235-pound Towt’s presence can help others buy into the rebounding mindset.

It also helps that Notre Dame has five players on the roster listed taller than Towt — sophomore forward Garrett Sundra (6-11), freshman forward Brady Koehler (6-10), senior forward Kebba Njie (6-10), freshman center Tommy Ahneman (6-10) and graduate transfer forward Matthew MacLellan (6-9) — and only one listed shorter than 6-4 — Burton at 6-0.

“Our look is different,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “We don’t walk through many airports anymore, but we got an airport team. We’re bigger. We’re taller. We’re longer. We’re more athletic. Our look is a little bit different.

“I’m not playing, but the guys that are playing say they can feel that difference when they’re attacking off the dribble and trying to get to the basket. They can feel that difference, especially defensively.

“There are some changes. There are some differences. We’re still trying to work out the kinks of how it’s going to look.”

Focused on having fun through improvement

Back-to-back losing seasons to start Shrewsberry’s Notre Dame tenure could easily suck the fun out of the program. Certainly, watching the Irish play the past two seasons hasn’t been an overly pleasant experience. But the fact that Notre Dame only lost two players to the transfer portal after last season — forward Tae Davis to Oklahoma and guard J.R. Konieczny to Florida Gulf Coast — indicates a certain level of buy-in from Notre Dame’s roster.

The remaining players seem to believe in what Shrewsberry is trying to build. The development process can be fun if everyone’s pushing in the same direction.

“Just have fun,” Shrewsberry said of his summer message to the team. “That’s what we’ve been doing. Spending a lot of time together, learning, but our continuity is a little bit different than a lot of people around the country.

“Having seven guys back, it doesn’t sound like a lot, but we can talk about things and guys are doing it already. We made some changes to some stuff and schematically in what we’re doing. But they picked up on it really well.

“They’ve come with an unbelievable attitude. But also I love the days when we’re not practicing and the court’s full of guys down there working and getting better. We have a team full of guys who want to get better.”

Notre Dame added four scholarship freshmen — Koehler, Ahneman and forwards Jalen Haralson and Ryder Frost — this offseason in addition to the graduate transfers of Towt and MacLellan (NAIA’s Madonna). One of the best recruiting classes in recent program history has hit the ground running.

“They’re learning,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “We got a lot of guys back. We got a lot of guys returning. We added a couple of older guys. They’re just falling in line with what those guys were already doing. The foundation has already been laid in place. They’ve come in eager to work and fell in line like everybody else.”