Starting over starts this week for the Notre Dame basketball team.
This coming college basketball season — Year Four of (maybe) seven under head coach Micah Shrewsberry — was supposed to be moving season for the Irish. Time to make a move up the ACC standings. Make a move with the fan base (good one). A move back to relevance. A move with an experienced/veteran/hungry/ready roster. Moving season.
Nobody saw a move back to Square One coming, but after an April dominated by the loss of main guys — five of the top six in the rotation last year and nine of the first 11 are gone for one reason or another — this is as about as tear-it-down-to-the-studs-and-start-over as it gets for a basketball program.
In other words, par for the course in the here today, all gone tomorrow time of the sport.
Following are six items on the to-do list for Shrewsberry and his guys as they gather this weekend for the start of the six-week summer session. The 2026-27 college basketball season starts now.
Become a team
This goes beyond playing pickup during every possible waking moment. Playing at Rolfs. Playing at Purcell Pavilion. Heck, even playing back in The Pit. The best teams are the most together teams that think and move and work as one. Save for the five returning guys from last year’s 13-18 squad, nobody knows much about what any of the nine newbies can do.
Who takes care of the ball when the ball needs to be taken care of? Who takes a key shot when a key shot is required? Who can be counted on to get in a stance defensively? To get everyone into something offensively? To believe when there’s nothing to believe?
All questions, and many more, that need answers.
First, find time off the court to be together. Get to know one another as people first. The player part will follow. Build bonds. Form friendships. Find a common cause that will keep this group competing when it gets tough. It will get tough. Like go all the way to Italy for the opener tough.
Cancel culture
That’s not a typo.
Scrap it. Dismiss any discussion of it. Move off it and move on.
Culture in college basketball has gone the way of the two-handed set shot and the high-top sneaker. It’s a dinosaur. Every program in the country, from the ones who dream Final Four dreams to those trying to stay afloat in a 31-game regular-season grind, is a one-and-done.
Head coaches and assistants scramble to fill out a roster in the spring. Everyone comes together in the summer, reconvenes in the fall and gives it a go in winter to succeed in the spring. The cycle then starts over.
This is a one-year/one shot deal for Notre Dame, and for many programs in college basketball. One chance, and everything again changes. Forget culture. Go compete.
Do something well
It doesn’t matter what it might be. Maybe, like Shrewsberry’s first team in 2023-24, this team plays like its lives depend on locking down teams on defense. Maybe, like Shrewsberry’s second team, it better executes on offense. Maybe, like last season, it’s a collective jumble of what the $#^%@ is that?
Whatever the case, cull a connectiveness that courses through this group and ride it as far as it can go. If Notre Dame must win games scoring in the 50s, score in the 50s. If it must run with the throttle wide open, throw it open. What this program cannot do is over-analyze anything. Don’t try to be something they’re not.
Just go play.
Look inside — at last
What’s that, you say? Notre Dame basketball has an actual living/breathing low post threat on both ends for the first time since 2021-22 when Paul Atkinson became the best one-and-done transfer since Dan Miller in 2003?
Notre Dame has something — and someone — in Winthrop transfer Logan Duncomb (18.3 ppg., 8.9 rpg., 1.5 apg., 24.3 mpg.) that offers something not previously available in Shrewsberry’s first three seasons. Duncomb will score in the post. He will defend in the post. He will rebound in the post. He will get to the foul line (264 free throws in 2025-26) and shoot a high percentage (.600 field goal percentage) in the post. He will play.
Resting on what he did last season as Big South player of the year isn’t an option for the driven Duncomb. As good as he was a year ago, he believes he can be even better. That means a big season of double doubles for points and rebounds for him. Find him. Trust him.
Be open to everything and everyone
On paper, the starting lineup likely looks like this: Gonzaga transfer Braeden Smith at point guard, four-year starter Braeden Shrewsberry at shooting guard, Penn transfer Ethan Roberts on the wing, sophomore holdover (what a concept!) Brady Koehler at small forward and Duncomb.
That’s a veteran group with everyone minus Koehler having played a combined 360 college basketball games. That’s basically 10 seasons. Can you compete with that group? You should. Can you win with that group? Let’s find out.
Same for the rest of the rotation. Maybe Rutgers transfer Bryce Dortch develops into that matchup nightmare defender. Maybe former Division II guy Yoro Diallo writes another chapter in his feel-good story. Maybe sophomore swingman Devin Brown fits and hits.
Maybe freshman guard Jonathan Sanderson’s attitude and aggressiveness become contagious. Maybe sophomore power forward Tommy Ahneman shows something we didn’t see coming.
Juggle the rotations. Switch the jerseys in practice. Let this staff find something that surprises even them. We won’t know about this group until we know. Can’t hurt to find out.
Let it sting
They know. Even the guys still learning their way Rolfs Hall know. This is expected to be another down year. A year that Notre Dame basketball hasn’t seen in decades. Maybe ever.
That’s how much Notre Dame basketball doesn’t matter for 2026-27. It’s not expected to happen for this group. It’s not expected to happen for this head coach. Or this staff. The losses are again expected to outnumber the wins for a fifth straight season. But maybe something happens on the way (back) to the basement. Maybe this group collectively decides that enough is enough.
This portal class believes it can win. Believes it will win. Maybe that’s enough. Maybe they believe in ways the previous three Shrewsberry squads never could.
Still, they hear it. They know it. That’s good. Let it motivate them on every early-morning conditioning session, every pickup game, every meal where guys can just breathe hoops.
Just when you believe it darkest …
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: Notre Dame basketball summer to-do list for Year Four under Micah Shrewsberry
Reporting by Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune | USA TODAY Network
