JotCast | Notre Dame basketball chat - January Part II 2026

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Mike from Fresno

9:13

Tom, I have been a Notre Dame basketball fan since I arrived on campus in the fall of ‘64. This might be considered heresy but I could stomach the football team going 0-12 if we had an undefeated basketball season.
I have been supportive of Coach Shrewsberry since he arrived but I am

Tom Noie

9:13

Jim: The solution is so simple. It's one that we've leaned into for all three seasons. So many issues on offense in terms of scheme, effectiveness, execution, etc. How about stop calling out every single set of every single second of every single offensive possession. We've been down this road often with Micah Shrewsberry. Coach your guys up and coach them hard at Rolfs Hall during the week. When it's time to play, let them play. Basketball is a game of movement. Freedom of movement. Movement that's not robotic or programmed. Cut and move and play. As long as Micah Shrewsberry believes his way is the best way, it's not always going to look right.

Jim in Charlottesville VA

9:09

Hello Tom and all. How do you think Shrews might improve the Irish’s Offensive schema, effectiveness, play, performance, and outcomes?

Tom Noie

9:09

Steve: Thanks for the note and for the kind words. Why won't Notre Dame invest more into the men's basketball program...we could be here all day debating this one. At its core, Notre Dame believes that it still can be a place where it's student-athlete and not just athlete. That can be true when it comes to football, where no matter how talented you are, you have to be on campus for at least seasons. It's four years for Notre Dame women's basketball. No matter how talented you are in those sports, you must be a STUDENT-ATHLETE at Notre Dame. Then there's men's basketball, where the elite need only to spend one year on campus before going pro. That's not a game that Notre Dame has played, and not a game it will ever play. It still believes in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, model of recruiting high school kids, developing high school kids and cultivating the student-athlete experience. Dozens of schools are like, we're going to do whatever it takes to be good. Notre Dame refuses to play that game.

Steve ‘77 from Brick, NJ

9:04

Tom, great column as always. Why do you think the ND administration doesn't care that much to invest more into the BB program than it does? Seems to me they can have success on the court and still in the classroom with a little more effort. I mean, with no disrespect to him, but Micah was the best they could do when Brey left? Seems like coaches don’t want to come because they know the administration isn’t that interested in having a successful program other than “the old way”. Thank you!

Tom Noie

9:04

Notre Dame is 4-7 without Markus Burton. Subtract 19 points, four assists and 30.1 minutes a night from any lineup and many teams will go nowhere.

Guest

9:03

Really going no where without Markus Burton

Tom Noie

9:02

Mike: Notre Dame thought it had its backup point guard - as long as Markus Burton stayed healthy. His name is Sir Mohammed. He was a top 50 recruit coming out of high school. Every time Micah Shrewsberry mentioned Sir in the summer and fall, he'd mention how he was drawn to his point guard skills, his passing ability, his floor vision. OK, you thought exiting those sessions, Sir Mohammed can be a high-major point guard. Until he couldn't. Not sure where the player development aspect of Mohammed went sideways, but it was intriguing that when Burton went down with his broken ankle because Mohammed had a chance to step in and be the lead guard. Why he hasn't is a mystery. His stalled growth necessitated asking/expecting more out of Logan Imes, who's best in snippets and not major minutes. There once was a Notre Dame head coach who often talked of how fragile everything about a college basketball season can be. Sure, we often thought. We see it more clearly now with no Markus Burton.

Mike, New Jersey

8:57

How is it possible two seasons in a row to not have a reliable back up point guard? I understand Haralson and Sir can be ball handlers but after last season this just seems like insanity. You already had an up close view of Imes running the show last season as well.(Although I will give him credit for his improvement this season.) Really good to average teams all across the country have two point guards that can keep turnovers down and run their offense.

Tom Noie

8:52

Tommy: Mark Zackery leaving the Notre Dame basketball team tells us nothing about the current state of the program. Zero. Mark Zackery was going to be nothing more than a practice player/emergency option at point guard. He last played basketball as a high school junior. He's a college football cornerback. Did you expect Zackery to step into the rotation and play 30 minutes a night? Three minutes a night were too many. There was an understanding from the start that once football conditioning/meetings/offseason got going in mid-January that Zackery was going to shift his focus back to football. He has a chance to be special. Shrewsberry wasn't going to have being a backup third guard get in the way of that. It's all outlined here: https://tinyurl.com/44nyjs7w

Tommy from CA

8:48

Zackery leaving the team tells you all you need to know about our “coach”. Not going to waste his time riding the bench when he could focus on football instead. Why even bring him onto the roster if you aren’t going to play him?

Tom Noie

8:46

James: Still in the process. Was there anything the first two seasons that allowed us to understand that, yes, now that's how that should look. No offense to the personnel, but Years One and Two were more about staying afloat in the Atlantic Coast Conference than running good offense. Shrewsberry's first season as defense first, second and third and fans around town wrapped their collective arms around that philosophy - until that style became too fan unfriendly. We're just now scratching the surface of what this program can be offensively. It's Jalen Haralson and Sir Mohammed hunting mismatches. It's Cole Certa getting even more comfortable as a shooter. It's Braeden Shrewsberry being more than just a shooter. It's the evolution of who Brady Koehler can be. It's trying to get something, trying to get anything out of Carson Towt. It's only a small sample size, but we saw stuff against Boston College - out of bounds unders, cuts, swings - that we rarely have seen. It offered some hope.

James from IN

8:42

You look at guys like Coach K and Brey and they adopt their system to fit their personal. Roy Williams on the other hand just ran his system and never adapted but it worked because he recruited exactly what he needed. What is Micah’s philosophy?

Tom Noie

8:30

Shrewsberry was asked by one dopey reporter (this one) about why the offense looks the way it does now. His answer again rolls back to how much Markus Burton meant to really everything that Notre Dame wanted to be. Shrewsberry said that they started the year believing it could play one way, then because of certain circumstances (the Burton injury) they had to scrap everything they believed they could do for the search of something else. Maybe they should be this or maybe they should be that. Only against Boston College, and maybe a little against Virginia Tech, did everything look like it they figured something out.

8:28

Leslie: Prior to the Virginia and Boston College games, the concern of exactly what kind of offense Notre Dame can/should/does run would have legs. Serious legs. Now, maybe not so much. Watching the Boston College game, particularly the second half, and watching long stretches against Virginia, that Notre Dame offense finally started to look like an offense. Movement. Iso when required. Cutting, passing, shot-making. It was like, ahhhhh, about freaking time, right? Micah Shrewsberry is constantly asking Jalen Haralson and Sir Mohammed to hunt mismatches. Some would say that's all they do. And they've finally figured out how to incorporate the 3-point shot with hunting mid-range opportunities.

Leslie from MA

8:24

Year 3 and Micah still can’t adapt his system to fit his players. If he wants to play iso ball, maybe recruit guys who can do that? And with this roster, why not go to a motion offense?

Tom Noie

8:23

And the whole "I get Markus Burton is injured, but...." But what? Take away someone who can get you 19 points a night and it's not supposed to mean anything? Mike, it means EVERYTHING. Eliminating 19 points a game from the lineup is a hill too big to climb. How many league losses might be wins without Markus Burton? Cal? Clemson or Miami? Maybe even Virginia Tech and Virginia? Probably not North Carolina, but don't underestimate what a difference Markus Burton might have made. It would have been significant, so much so that we're probably sitting here debating the merits of Notre Dame's NCAA Tournament resume instead of the merits of a third-year head coach.

8:20

Mike: Full transparency....the chat comment room went live BEFORE Notre Dame erased a 13-point deficit in the first half against Boston College in what was a four-point Irish win. So, Notre Dame snapped a five-game league losing streak and won a conference home game for the first time this season and THIS is how we're going to start? I'll answer your question with a question - how can we determine how much confidence we may or may not have in Micah Shrewsberry halfway through a season? This was never going to be a two- or three-year rebuild. It was going to take at least five and that was if everything - roster construction, recruiting, transfer portal, player development - fell perfectly into place. It hasn't, which leads us to where Notre Dame is heading into this weekend's trip to Central New York and a matchup with Syracuse - 11-10 overall, 2-6 in the ACC and looking/hoping/searching for something good to happen. Confidence that Micah Shrewsberry is going to turn this around? Still too early to tell.

Mike

8:16

How can you seriously have confidence in Shrewsberry to turn this around? I get Burton is injured but this is hard to watch…

Tom Noie

8:16

We couldn't wait. Not another few weeks. Not until February. Too much has happened - or hasn't happened - for Notre Dame basketball to hold off until February before circling back around these parts. Plus, if you've been around Northern Indiana of late, we need a diversion from all this snow and cold and snow and cloudy days and more snow. So, let's talk everything Notre Dame hoops. Please make sure you add your name and hometown (enough of this GUEST nonsense) with your question or comment. It helps to know that you're not some AI bolt. Or dolt. With that, you know the rest. Let's light this chat candle...

*** Thursday, January 29 ***

Tom Noie

9:13

What's your confidence level in Notre Dame basketball as February approaches?

These guys have a chance (7.7% | 5 votes)

I can see where this is going (12.3% | 8 votes)

Would like a little more consistency, please (20% | 13 votes)

Not quite sure what to make of it all (23.1% | 15 votes)

When's spring football start? (36.9% | 24 votes)

Total Votes: 65

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