A Notre Dame basketball program that once swam among the sport’s sharks now sleeps with the fishes.
Move over, Luca Brasi. Here come the Irish.
No word on whether a dead fish wrapped in newspaper greeted head coach Micah Shrewsberry as he eased into his seat for the team charter flight home from Saturday’s game at Boston College.
There was a time when Notre Dame deserved its place at the big-kids table. It won a lot of games. It was a factor in one of the nation’s most respected conferences. It was ranked. It was respected. It went on deep runs in the conference and NCAA tournaments. It had dudes. It had swagger.
It was good.
Ten years ago this month, Notre Dame was on such a heater that it went to consecutive Elite Eight appearances for the first time since 1978-79. It nearly beat undefeated Kentucky in a regional final on that memorable Saturday night in Cleveland. It played in another one the following season on that memorable Easter night in South Philadelphia. In 2015, it did the unthinkable for a football program from up north and beat Duke and North Carolina on consecutive nights on Tobacco Road to win the ACC Tournament championship.
To prove that that season was no fluke, it nearly won a second ACC tournament two seasons later in New York. There was a time when Notre Dame owned Duke in the ACC. It owned North Carolina. It was a power player in the ACC.
Today, it’s a stuck-in-neutral program anchored to the bottom of the league standings. It wants to be good. It needs to be good. It doesn’t know how to be good.
In March 2024, head coach Micah Shrewsberry stood amongst his players and his staff in a locker room in an NBA arena in downtown Washington and asked everyone to remember that feeling when his first season ended in the second round of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament. Look around and remember the moment, Shrewsberry said that day in D.C. Notre Dame basketball wasn’t ever going back to play in the first game on the first day of the league tournament. That was a promise.
Turned out to be just another one broken. Like this program.
The following year, Notre Dame basketball played in the first game on the first day of the league tournament. It won’t do that this season because there will be no league tournament for Notre Dame, which closed what Shrewsberry termed a “season from Hell” following a 44-point home loss to No. 1 Duke on Feb. 24, following Saturday’s 77-69 loss to Boston College.
At 13-18 overall, 4-14 in the ACC, Notre Dame is done. No more games. No more chances to be better. No more lifeless losses. It ended the way it did against Boston College at Conte Forum, a long T ride from TD Garden, where Shrewsberry worked his way onto the radar of college athletic directors as a gotta-hire guy while an assistant with the Boston Celtics.
Had Notre Dame beaten Boston College, it still would have needed help to get to Charlotte as the No. 15 seed in the ACC Tournament. In the end, Notre Dame couldn’t even help itself. Fitting, isn’t it?
Next season for Notre Dame basketball starts now
At 2:22 p.m., on Saturday, the conference coroner called it. Notre Dame basketball in 2025-26 is officially dead. No more pulse. No more practice. For the first time in program history, Notre Dame will miss a conference tournament because it wasn’t good enough to play in a conference tournament.
See you next season, whatever that might look like, feel like, and be. It cannot look, feel, or be like any of the last three.
Saturday ended another forgettable week in seasons filled with them under Shrewsberry, now 41-56 overall and 19-39 in the ACC in three seasons back in South Bend. There’s no indication that he won’t get a fourth in 2026-27. He might even get a fifth. Why? This isn’t football. Deal with it.
Heading into the final week of the regular season, arguably the biggest win under Shrewsberry – the 96-90 overtime victory over North Carolina State on Senior Day – all Notre Dame had to do was win at least one game to keep hope alive. Beat Stanford. Or beat Boston College. Notre Dame didn’t beat Stanford. It didn’t beat Boston College despite leading by nine points in each half.
Notre Dame quietly folded and now scatters for points unknown for an early spring break, having gone the entire 18-game league schedule without ever winning consecutive league games. The Irish were 1-8 on the road with the win came in the conference opener at Stanford on Dec. 30. It went an embarrassing 3-6 at home, where Purcell Pavilion again more of a library and not the looney bin where Notre Dame once won a nation’s best 45 straight home games.
Now, it cannot win two straight home games. It cannot handle even a sliver of success. Every time it took a step forward, it followed with two back. Case in point, the final week. Notre Dame was always good enough to be average, but never good enough to be good.
Maybe that was the roster makeup. Maybe that was player inexperience and immaturity. Maybe that was the head coach, the staff, or the athletic director. Or scheme. Whatever it was, that must be better. Yes, the season ended on Saturday, March 7, but you know what happened on Sunday, March 8?
The clock started on Notre Dame basketball for 2026-27. Before the 2026 league tournament starts. Before the transfer portal opens on April 7. Notre Dame is already on the clock to be better next season.
Hear it? It’s already ticking.
Everything that this program has been for the last three seasons must cease next season. Success at home and on the road must surface. The core guys expected back must be one of the winners. The head coach must show something from an X-and-O and a leadership standpoint that we haven’t yet seen.
Sift through all those losses and low moments, and we saw progress from this roster. There’s something to work with, to build on, to lean on moving forward. It’s time to see it from start to finish. Time to secure success and sustain it.
Time to show what Notre Dame basketball can be again.
Good luck.
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: Did Notre Dame basketball find a way to get to the ACC Tournament?
Reporting by Tom Noie, South Bend Tribune / South Bend Tribune
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
