JotCast | January 2024 Notre Dame men's basketball chat

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Thomas Noie

10:06

It's fascinating to cover this program because you don't know what direction it's all going to go under Micah Shrewsberry, and the same will hold true for the offseason. Who is Shrewsberry when it comes to roster management? When Rick Pitino was at Louisville, he'd try to max out his allotted scholarships every season and use that season as the ultimate prove-it session. End of the year, it was common for the Louisville roster to turnover, sometimes drastically, because Pitino would go to every single guy and tell them either they could play for him or they had to go play somewhere else. Shrewsberry doesn't strike me as that kind of guy, especially since he's preached the importance of player development....

Joe Migas

10:03

What changes on the current roster do you see next season...It makes sense we will lose some players to the portal with 3 freshman coming in as well as players transferring in....Thoughts?

Thomas Noie

9:56

True, credit Micah Shrewsberry for speaking some hard truths to his guys after that 65-45 loss to The Citadel, but also credit the players for understanding that whatever they were doing and however they were doing it pre-Citadel wasn't working. Something had to change. They had to change. They had to be more connected on and off the court. They had to CARE that Notre Dame basketball is important. I don't know how much they embraced everything that they needed to embrace the way it needed to be embraced before that loss. Since then, it's like they get what it means to be a part of that program. To be a TEAM.

Guest

9:54

The Irish are a lot better since the Citadel game, passion, fire and caring, credit Coach

Thomas Noie

9:53

Markus Burton does need to be on the floor and the only true handler and the only true scorer. Because of that, you have to live with some of the turnovers. He'll get better and the Irish will be better for it, but getting through these growing pains is still, well, painful. Notre Dame has historically taken good care of the basketball. It hasn't this season.

Guest

9:52

i know you said Burton needed to be on the court and I’m sure he’ll get better but 7 TO at minimum 14 points given away and it every game multiple TO

Thomas Noie

9:52

Rick: Pick your poison the other night. Who do you throw Julian Roper on as your best defensive guard? Do you have himg uard Jaeden Zackery, the team's third-leading scorer or do you put him on Claudell Harris, the team's second-leading scorer? Harris went 1-of-13 from the floor the other night. Zackery got the matchup mismatch and got going. I'd be OK with that if Quinten Post didn't wake up the final five minutes. The Harris-Zackery combo kind of canceled itself out. The Irish had no answer for Post. That can't happen, not in the ACC. It happened.

Rick from Ohio

9:49

I was bewildered with the fact that not once during the Boston College game they did not choose to defend Zackery with Roper. Clearly Roper’s size and strength is a better matchup than the smaller Burton, the lighter Shrewsberry, and the slower konieczny. What did you think Tom?

Thomas Noie

9:47

...The Big East would make sense from a basketball standpoint, but it did nothing from an Olympic sports standpoint. It wasn't as competitive as Notre Dame wanted, which is why the ACC made sense. It's not as easy as saying, well, when/if the ACC dissolves, Notre Dame just goes back to the Big East. I wouldn't want to be Pete Bevacqua trying to move the pieces around the college athletics puzzle. Say what you want about Jack Swarbrick, but his ability to maneuver Notre Dame through the realignment landmines was nothing short of Houdini-like.

9:44

RH: The thinking is that's where this is headed, but let's see how it plays out. What if Florida State is allowed to leave, but the exit fee comes in at ... $500 million plus. Where does Florida State get that amount of money, and where would it go? Is the SEC anxious to add Florida State? Wouldn't Florida push back on it? Same with the Big Ten. Is a mass exodus from the ACC inevitable? Somebody's going to be left behind, and that group likely will include Duke and Wake Forest. Notre Dame wouldn't mind being aligned with those schools in some fashion....

RH from NC

9:41

Tom, Lots of discussion down here in the heart of ACC country about Florida State suing the conference with the hope of speeding up a low-cost exit. I really don't know what to make of this development because 1) I'm not sure Florida State can get out of the ACC at a reasonable cost, and 2) I'm not sure where they would go (SEC or BIG 10? I'm skeptical of either wanting them). From ND's perspective, how big a concern is this? My guess is that if Flordia State exits, the whole conference will come crashing down. And then does ND (and maybe UNC and UVA) finally join the BIG 10? Or does ND maybe hook up with the BIG East for everything but football? Neither is ideal but it would not shock me if the ACC only has another 3-5 years left in it.

Thomas Noie

9:41

Mike: Patience was preached for this season, and for good reason. This team was young, this coaching staff was new and everything would be an adventure. All true. But the win over Virginia - the WAY Notre Dame beat Virginia - kind of raised the bar of expectations. If the Irish were that good and that connected and that together to do THAT to Virginia, it could bottle it and win three, four, five league games it had no business winning. Then the North Carolina State and Duke and Florida State and Boston College games happened. All getable games that the Irish let get away. The pieces don't quite fit. The roster is missing some key pieces, paramount being a second scoring guard with experience. You know who this team could use this season? Prentiss Hubb. He'd take Markus Burton under his wing, and would give the guys some swagger to close out some of these league games. They don't have a Hubb, so they are where they are.

mike

9:37

Just got done watching the Boston College game. As far as I can see this has to be on the coach. I understand Burton is one heck of a player but do they have any other play besides him driving the lane and nothing to do with the ball half the time or better and ends up in a turn over. Maybe I expect to much from a young team but there is a least 3 or 4 games there is no way they should of lost.

Thomas Noie

9:27

Robert: Technically, it's Tae Davis, who's 6-foot-9 and is listed as a forward, but who plays more like a big guard. He guards the other team's best player, who's often a guard or a wing. He's the secondary ball handler to Markus Burton. When he's out of the game (see Florida State), Notre Dame looks differently and plays differently, and not necessarily for the best.

Robert

9:25

Whose are best wing defender?

Thomas Noie

9:23

...From a basketball standpoint, NIL opportunities for members of the Notre Dame men's program fall under the Irish United umbrella (https://irishunited.com/). Former Irish guards David Graves and Colin Falls are on the board of directors. But again, nobody knows how much Kebba Njie is making from an NIL standpoint or Markus Burton. Student-athletes will eventually become employees of their universities. The tooth paste is out of the tube. Student-athletes? Those days are gone.

9:21

Mike: That's the $64,000 question. Or, in this day and age of what really is pay for play, the $100,000-plus question. Nobody really knows how NIL works. Not in college football. Not in college basketball. Nobody is that forthcoming with how much money they're making. Players talk around it, or don't talk about it at all. Sam Hartman was said to be making over $1 million last year. Same now for Riley Leonard. But there's no trail. It is like a slush fund under the guise of Name Image and Likeness. It really is pay for play....

Mike

9:19

Could you explain how NIL really works? When it was first introduced i thought it would simply allow college athletes to be paid if they, or their image, were used in some sort of advertisement. Now it seems it is merely a slush fund divided out to college athletes whether or not their “name, image, or likeness” is used or not.

Thomas Noie

9:16

You nailed it. All of it. Why too much dribbling? Why the turnovers? Why the inability to close games when games are there to close? This is a group that even 18 games in, doesn't know what it doesn't know. It was a blank canvas at the start of the season and even now has only a few brush strokes of paint. The picture, this team, remains incomplete. None of it gets better without going through it - the inability to take care of the ball, the inability to run good offense, the inability to win close games. Micah Shrewsberry and his staff can't MAKE them do these tasks. That has to come from within. It has to reach a point where it's second nature, where everything just flows. You can almost see the wheels turning in these guys' heads during games. They don't know how to adapt or adjust or keep playing. The other night, Boston College figured, hey, let's be physical with the Irish. Bang them. Body them. That threw them off their game. Again, they don't know what they don't know.

NotreDameBallCoach

9:12

Tom - No inside game and too much dribbling with little set plays. Turnovers have hurt scoring chances - definitley a different style of play than under Coach Brey. What seems to be very noticeable is inability to know how to win when the opportunity is there. At times looks like the Game is too fast for the first year players and experience needed that will hopefully show improvement next season. Your insights always appreciated.

Thomas Noie

9:10

Jet: Notre Dame's three-man recruiting class of 2024 (G Sir Mohammed, G, Cole Certa, PF Garrett Sundra) currently is ranked 36th nationally by Rivals.com and 24th by 247Sports. Rivals considered Mohammed a four-star recruit, Certa and Sundra are three starts. 247Sports has Mohammed and Certa as four stars, Sundra as three. Both recruiting services consider Notre Dame to have the sixth-ranked class in the ACC. ESPN's rankings are behind a pay wall, but likely fall closely in line with Rivals and 247.

Jet from Evansville

9:07

What is the rank of next years recruiting class?

Thomas Noie

9:04

Scott: We'll see, but it can't be, not if Notre Dame wants to compete with the elite of the elite in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Close off the transfer portal annually and this program is more like Boston College and Georgia Tech. Can Notre Dame survive that? Does the administration realize that? This year, Notre Dame took transfers from Northwestern (Julian Roper), Penn State (Kebba Njie) and Seton Hall (Tae Davis). I'd expect Notre Dame to continue to draw from that kind of transfer pool in terms of kids with Northwestern and Seton Hall kind of backgrounds. Notre Dame may need to tap the portal again in the offseason. Will it be able to land the kind of guys it needs to land? If not, buckle up...the transfer portal has become a college basketball lifeline. Without it, Notre Dame will struggle to stay afloat.

Scott

9:01

This year the university allowed non-graduate players to transfer into ND for men’s basketball. Was this a one-time exception?

Thomas Noie

9:01

Fred: Totally agree. It speaks to the lack of basketball IQ. Remember all the times Mike Brey would talk of his guys and their high basketball IQs? We in the media would kind of roll our eyes when he said it. Like, pfff, that's Brey being Brey again. Then you see this year's team play and think that there is indeed something to that. The basketball IQ is low because these guys are so young. Not just the freshmen, but everybody. The old guys (Kebba Njie, Julian Roper, Tae Davis, J.R. Konieczny) are still young guys in terms of their basketball experiences. They start to dribble the ball, they're not thinking two, three dribbles ahead. Like, what will I have to do when my dribble is cut off? Where do I go with the ball? Who's open? Where are they? That's stuff that becomes second nature only after a ton of game reps and practice reps and pickup reps in the summer. They dribble too much because they don't know much about the game. That will change with experience.

Fred/Arizona

8:57

It seems to me that they dribble into trouble too much. Pass a few times then shoot the ball!

Thomas Noie

8:57

Wes: The free throw issue was addressed in the previous question/comment, but I can't agree enough with you on the total lack of assists, not only in the Florida State game (seven) but this season. Notre Dame currently ranks 13th in the 15-team Atlantic Coast Conference and 254th nationally (351 teams in D-I rankings) for assists at 12.4. That's way too few. The reasons are myriad? The Irish don't know each other well enough, don't know Micah Shrewsberry's offense well enough, don't know the game well enough to have it look the way it's all supposed to look. With guys cutting and moving and the ball, as Shrewsberry often likes to say, poppin'. It's seldom popped the way it needs to for this offense not to look offensive.

wes st charles mo

8:53

in watching the game at Florida State i was surprised in the lack of free throw shooting. that has to be a coaching issues?. Also i am concerned about the lack of assists in baskets made for the whole season, another coaching issues? the only way ND wins is if a player has an above average scoring day. i would expect at this time in a season free throws would a constant and set plays would be in place.

Thomas Noie

8:53

Don't talk about free throws, don't dwell on free throws. Doing so, coaches believe, will make guys worry even more. Wake Forest coach Steve Forbes mentioned this week on the ACC coaches Zoom call that he doesn't have his team practice free throws - ever. Wake Forest is ranked third in the country in free throw percentage (.799). Sometimes, less IS more.

8:51

Is it? Clear, that is. Free throw shooting was indeed an issue in Saturday's nine-point loss to Florida State. Notre Dame missed eight free throws, including a staggering one-for-eight in the first half. It's easy to say the Irish need more work in that area, except the previous game out - in an overtime win at Georgia Tech - Notre Dame was a staggering 19-of-21 (90.5 percent) from the foul line. So what gives? Are the Irish that good from the line, or that bad? Maybe somewhere in the middle? Notre Dame currently ranks 202nd nationally (.706) from the foul line. That has to be better, but how do does it get better? Put too much of an emphasis on free throws, and it likely has a reverse effect. Guys start pressing, staring banging shots off the back iron. It's like a pitcher when he's throwing a no-hitter. Don't talk about the no-hitter so as to not jinx him.

Steve Watts

8:47

Clearly more time and coaching by someone on the staff is needed for shooting free throws successfully…..poor performance there has cost them too many games.

Thomas Noie

8:32

Notre Dame basketball is on a needed eight-day break from game action, but we don't need a break. The Irish getting some time away gives us some time to drill down on this program, this season. What do you like? Don't like? Need to see over the final 13 Atlantic Coast Conference games? Offer your questions/comments. Be sure to include your name and hometown. With that, you know the rest, you know what comes next. Let's light this chat candle...

8:30

Your thoughts on where Notre Dame men's basketball is now 18 games into the 2023-24 season?

Overachieving (21.1% | 4 votes)

Underachieving (21.1% | 4 votes)

Right where they should be (57.9% | 11 votes)

Total Votes: 19

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