A week after new Notre Dame coach Micah Shrewberry laid out his vision for rebuilding the Irish men’s basketball team, a key piece to it fell into place.
And a big piece at that. Literally.
Carey Booth, a 6-foot-9, 215-pound four-star forward, verbally committed to Notre Dame on Tuesday after spending a day last week on an official visit. The No. 79 player nationally, per Rivals, is a member of the 2023 class and will enroll in June with guards Markus Burton of Mishawaka (Ind.) Penn and Braeden Shrewsberry of State College, Pa. — the coach’s son.
“A bet on Booth is a bet on his massive potential,” said Rivals basketball recruiting director Rob Cassidy after Booth moved up 11 spots in the final Rivals150. “He’s not a polished prospect by any means but his trajectory toward his massive ceiling is positive.
“His length and ability to stretch the floor is rare. So is his defensive versatility. He’s taken strides as a shooter but still needs to improve as well as add weight. Even now, while still lacking muscle, he impacts games as a rebounder as well as a scorer when he’s going well.”
The son of former NBA forward and current Denver Nuggets general manager Calvin Booth, Carey spent his senior season at national prep power Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, N.H., after playing for Cherry Creek High in suburban Denver as an underclassman.
“This next year will say a lot about what type of long term prospect he is,” Cassidy said, “as his potential needs to turn into consistent production.”
Both Booth and the younger Shrewsberry were part of Penn State’s three-man class signed in November. All three of those players — including 6-4 guard Logan Imes of Zionsville, Ind. — asked for and were released from their National Letters of Intent when Micah Shrewsberry left Penn State for Notre Dame late last month and officially announced his commitment on Monday.
Burton is the only one of three Irish November signees who didn’t opt out after former head coach Mike Brey announced he was stepping down after 23 seasons. Burton recently was named Indiana Mr. Basketball after leading the state in scoring at 30.3 points per game.
With three starters and two top reserves having exhausted their eligibility and five potential returnees leaving via the transfer portal from last year’s 11-21 squad (3-17 ACC), Shrewsberry inherited just three returnees.
He’s now added three June-arriving freshmen and Northwestern transfer guard Julian Roper II to give him seven scholarship players. Penn State transfer Kebba Njie, a 6-10 forward who played his freshman season for Shrewsberry in 2022-23, is close to making a decision with the Irish very much in play.
“I think right now our goal is to get to stable,” Shrewsberry said Tuesday in an interview during the Notre Dame Day fundraising event. “From what we have right now, you want to get to stable and then you want to start building from there. I think we’ll have a great group of young players that we’re able to build around, and that’ll be our group that really grows together and takes us to a totally different level.
“We feel good about our recruiting and what we’re doing with high school seniors, the ‘24 class. We feel really good about our ‘23 class, that’ll be announced at some point in time soon. Now that group can grow together, and that’ll be the group that will take us to new heights here.”
Shrewsberry said he’ll continue to monitor the transfer portal, but that his preference is to do most of his building with high school talent. The spring transfer portal window closes at the end of the day May 11. Players can choose schools after that point, but can’t enter the portal.
“We want to build with an eye towards the present and an eye towards the future, and that’s a delicate balance right now,” Shrewberry said. “I think there are some (in the portal) that do fit. We're going to recruit high school players. Those are the kids, like I know them.
“I get a chance to recruit you for a year, two years. I’ve sat in your living room. You’ve come to my house, and we know each other. The portal’s like speed dating. You really don’t know them. You’re going to get married to somebody after a week and sometimes that doesn’t always work out.
“They can hide a lot of things in the portal. We may recruit the portal for need, but once we get stable, we’re going to recruit high school kids. They're going to be ours. We're going to know them. We're going to make them the best players for Notre Dame, and I think you’ll see some really good ones coming through here.”
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