Notebook: Shrewsberry sizes up Notre Dame MBB freshmen's development

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — Notre Dame men's basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry’s scouting report on the on-court progress of his freshman class Thursday initially somewhat limited — not by paranoia, but rather the injury bug.

Two of the three — guards Sir Mohammed and Cole Certa — were bystanders during a practice session that was open for the first hour to the media on Thursday at Rolfs Athletics Hall. And Shrewsberry noted that they’d been out about “a week or so” with minor injuries.

“So, they're a little bit behind, just because they haven't gotten the reps that everybody else has gotten,” said Shrewsberry, Notre Dame’s second-year men’s basketball coach. “But it's July, so I'm not pushing them, rushing them back to get reps. No. Their health is the most important thing.”

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And they’re still healthy enough to get some extra reps in the weight room, Shrewsberry added, with associate director of strength and conditioning Greg Miskinis.

At the very least they’ll be along for the ride when the Irish head to Spain next month for a week-and-a-half trip that will include up to three exhibition games. The team leaves for Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia on Aug. 5 and returns Aug. 15

“You could see how locked in they are when we're doing teaching moments, when it's time to learn,” Shrewsberry said of the 6-6 Mohammed and 6-5 Certa. “They're really locked in and focused. So, I'm not concerned about those two guys. When they were out there, they were really good.”

The healthy one of the three is wiry 6-11 forward Garrett Sundra, who did mix it up Thursday with the three grad-transfer imports and Notre Dame’s seven core returning scholarship players from a team that finished with a 6-4 surge over the final 10 games of a 13-20 season that included a 7-13 run in ACC play.

Reigning ACC Rookie of the Year, rising sophomore Markus Burton, meanwhile, lauded Mohammed as a more-than-capable backup to him at point guard. And Shrewsberry eventually gave a detailed thumbnail of both Mohammed and Certa.

“Sir is going to be a really good player for us,” Shrewsberry said. “I've always talked about his ability to pass and process the game with the ball in his hands is about as high level as I've seen for an 18-year-old kid.

“Cole Cetra has the confidence of — he's the ultimate gunslinger, like that dude’s never met a shot that he doesn't believe is going in. You love guys that have that. You can reel that back in a little bit, but the guys that don't have that confidence, it's hard to get them to that point. So, I love that about him.”

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Forging chemistry on and off the court among the six newcomers, seven scholarship holdovers and the handful of walk-ons and helping define roles for all of them is at the top of the priority list for Shrewsberry during the 11 days abroad.

“It's hard to play 14 people,” Shrewsberry said.

And yet Shrewsberry is open to having a deep rotation if his players can show they’re capable of playing at a faster tempo and showing improved offensive efficiency in the new pace, beginning in Spain.

Last season, the Irish were adept at neither, finishing 342nd out of 351 Division I teams nationally in scoring offense (64.0 points per game) and 330th in field-goal percentage (40.7%).

“There’s competition,” Shrewsberry said as a difference from last season. “Like, when I come out to practice and I look at the dude across from me, it’s a real basketball player standing across from me.

“So I told them in order for us to play like this our tempo and our pace has got to improve — or we're going to play slower. [And then] I only have to play like seven guys, because we're playing at a slower pace. So, we're playing at a faster tempo, which will allow people to max out even more, and they're gonna need to sub. They're gonna need a break.”

To help ingrain that new pace, the Notre Dame players have been practicing with the international-rules 24-second shot clock since the spring, rather than the NCAA’s 35-second version.

And that’s what will be used in the exhibition games in Spain involving the Irish.

“So, doing that in these games, we should see how that pace translates to what we're doing offensively,” Shrewsberry said. “These games are really important in Spain, but these practices are really important for me.

“We don't have a lot of stuff in, but we’ve got enough into play, So, there's going to be some situations that we're not going to be quite ready for. Like, how can we, on the fly, figure it out? I'm trying to increase our creativity as a team. So, how can we do some things on the fly when we get in these situations?

“That's mostly what I'm looking for, just being together as a team is the most important thing. Like we're learning in practice. We're doing stuff. We're not going to be great defensively, because we're not spending a lot of time on it [yet]. So, really gauging our offense, how we're playing.”

Rising junior forward Tae Davis was Notre Dame’s third-leading scorer (9.2 per game) last season, his first with the Irish after transferring in from Seton Hall, and second in rebounding (5.1).

He was third in minutes played (26.0) and first among scholarship players in field goal percentage (.484). And yet Shrewsberry believes the 6-9 forward from Indianapolis can be so much more — and will with a more-focused role this upcoming season.

“I think part of our growth, as a coaching staff, is knowing how to coach guys better, knowing how to get the best out of them,” Shrewsberry said. “I didn't put him in those situations to do that last year, because he had to move so much. He had to go from one spot to the next — and they're totally different, completely different.

“When he's comfortable, he's really good. So, being able to pull them in a single role of what he's doing is pretty similar, on a daily basis, has really opened up his game. He knows what to do. There's not a lot of thinking with what he's doing and how he's playing. He's just kind of playing, which has been great.

“I think for a lot of our guys, and even though we've added some new stuff, there are still some things that are similar. You'll see growth from year one to year two, because guys aren't thinking as much anymore.”

A slimmer version of rising junior Kebba Njie (notably down and quicker from the 6-10, 254 he was listed at in June) and Monmouth transfer Nikita Konstantynovskyi appear to have earned tag-team roles in the post for the 2024-25 Irish.

Njie averaged 4.3 points and a team-leading 5.4 rebounds last season, his first with the Irish after transferring in from Penn State when Shrewsberry left the Nittany Lions to come to ND. The 6-10, 245-pound Konstantynovskyi, a Ukraine native, averaged 9.3 points and 8.1 rebounds last season at Monmouth, his third college after playing previously at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M and Tulsa.

“Kebba and Nikita are so different that it gives you a change of pace when they each come in,” Shrewsberry said. “And they each do different things that they're better at. Kebba’s above the rim. He's catching lobs. He's catching and dunking.

“Nikita is a great passer in the seams, like he's a really good passer with the ball in his hands, hitting guys on back cuts, on slips. Like getting from one action to the next, catching the seam and spraying it out to guys for shots.

“You can throw the ball to him in the post. He can score it in different ways. So, like they're so different. You just need them both. You need them both to really max out, play as hard as they can and then sub. Get the next guy in.”

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