Think of the potential player pool during last month’s whirlwind transfer portal session, where more than 2,600 names floated out there, as Lake Michigan.
Plenty of water, plenty of possibilities for college basketball teams to cast nets wide and far and haul in a big catch or two.
Then there was Notre Dame basketball. The possibility of fishing those transfer portal waters was nice, but the Irish never left the pier, deciding instead to drop a cane pole into a crowded five-gallon bucket.
For myriad reasons, be it financial, institutional or philosophical, Notre Dame didn’t go the deep-sea route with its fancy carbon-fiber reels and 100-pound test lines. It stayed small to rebuild the 2026-27 roster.
Notre Dame basketball pulled five players from the portal with five different college basketball stories. Graduate seniors Logan Duncomb and Ethan Roberts are on their fourth school in five years. Devin Brown and Bryce Dortch are babies having played one and two seasons at their former schools before chasing a change of scenery.
Guard Braeden Smith has one season to do what he believes he can do — albeit at his third college stop — run a team, lead a team, be a reason said team enjoys success.
Notre Dame still might add a sixth, but for now, this team is its team.
The names of the transfer five (we’re not touching Fab for this group), weren’t high priority for big-name schools who went big-game portal fishing. On paper, they aren’t difference-makers or program turners. They won’t make you contemplate season tickets. Or even single game tickets.
They aren’t guys that you collectively look at and conclude that Notre Dame got better. One on-line site, 247sports, ranks Notre Dame’s portal class 13th in the 18-team Atlantic Coast Conference and 57th nationally. Another, on3, slots it 17th and 72nd.
For Notre Dame, that’s par for the portal course where it competes as a high-major but operates like a mid-major. That’s a column for a different day.
Today, who this portal class is — or isn’t — matters little. They are part of the Notre Dame basketball program. They will compete in 2026-27. What they were in their previous basketball lives, what Notre Dame has been for the last three seasons under head coach Micah Shrewsberry, also is of little consequence.
None of it matters. Neither do the six players (OK, seven) that Notre Dame lost in the portal in April, when it seemed the program was a tire fire set to scorch Rolfs Hall to its foundation.
That was last month. An awful April, for sure, but that April’s over. The players who left and the reasons for leaving are just a footnote for a proud program.
If April was a month to wonder why, May is a time to turn the basketball page. To wonder what this team and what this program can be with this group, under this coach, in these trying/troubling circumstances.
Time to focus on what Notre Dame is, not what it lost. Wish those former guys the best and do your best to make this program something it hasn’t been since 2021-22.
Winners.
It won’t be easy, adding these five transfer portal additions to the three incoming freshmen for a group of eight that join five returning members off last year’s team that finished 13-18 overall, 4-14 in the ACC.
If many saddle this coming season solely on Notre Dame securing success, better find a new calculus. And cause. It’s not going to happen. Rather, don’t expect it to happen. It didn’t happen during the first three seasons under Shrewsberry. It’s probably not going to happen for the fourth, one year after Shrewsberry’s self-described “year from Hell.”
Heaven ain’t knocking down that door next winter. The blueprints may not say it, but this is as close to a rebuild as rebuilds get.
The first time the transfer five takes the floor with the incoming three and the retuning five will be the first time the group passes and dribbles and rebounds and shoots as one. Smith doesn’t know where Braeden Shrewsberry likes the ball in his shot pocket on the wing. Duncomb doesn’t know how to space the floor with stretch-four Brady Koehler.
Roberts might be that veteran leader the program has long lacked. Freshman Jonathan Sanderson doesn’t know what he doesn’t know about being a college point guard. Ditto Gan Solongo as a Power Four big.
That’s what the next few months are for after everyone arrives in June for summer school. It was said before during Shrewsberry’s first season as head coach, said during his second and his third, so say it again before his fourth.
Get everyone settled in on campus and then lock the door to Rolfs. Don’t worry about instilling a certain way to play offense or defense. Don’t sweat concepts or calls or anything else. Get this group to run pickup until they can’t run pickup. Then run some more. Last game to 11, who’s in?
This group (still too early to call it a team) needs reps. Tons of them. It must find out about one another before finding its way.
What is Notre Dame basketball? What can it be? Not even the slightest clue, but that’s what makes it intriguing. Coming clear of transfer portal season, Notre Dame basketball feels like the collection of characters from the movie Major League. Like, who are these guys? These guys?
Count them out. Don’t care about them. They’re still going to open the 2026-27 season in Rome. They’re still going to play 31 regular-season games and 18 ACC games. They’re still going to believe that there is a reason to believe.
Those Major League misfits went from nowhere to somewhere. It found a formula. It found success. For Notre Dame basketball, the search begins.
Where it leads will be fascinating. Always is.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: This is how Notre Dame basketball moves forward from its awful April
Reporting by Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
