SOUTH BEND — College basketball absorbed a few bad-for-the-game body blows in late June when Dusty May decided not even three months after winning a national championship at Michigan that he would be better off in the NBA as head coach of the Dallas Mavericks.
Critics lined up to explain May’s reason to parachute out. Too many unknowns in the college game. Too little life-work balance for a job that requires you to be on 24/7/365. Too much this, too little that. The explanations/excuses went on and on as to why anyone in their right coaching mind would stick around college today, much less tomorrow.
Notre Dame basketball head coach Micah Shrewsberry might be one to agree. He’s in charge of a program that has slid hard and fast and silently into irrelevance. Ten years ago, Notre Dame was coming off consecutive Elite Eight appearances in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1978-79. Nine years ago, the Irish were minutes away from winning a second Atlantic Coast Conference tournament championship in three years.
It’s been four years since Notre Dame went to the NCAA Tournament and also finished a season with a winning record, streaks that are expected to stretch to five in 2026-27 as Shrewsberry attempts to make something out of a patchwork roster that includes transfer portal additions from Davidson, Penn, Rutgers and Division II Virginia-Wise.
For everything everyone had to say that was bad about college basketball, Shrewsberry believes there’s still a lot of good. In the game. In coaching the game. In being in the game.
“I’m still old school,” the 49-year-old Shrewsberry said during a 20-minute meeting with the media on June 25 to discuss his program. “I still believe that you can make a difference in somebody’s life. No matter if that’s for nine months or that’s for four years.”
Yes, Notre Dame lags miles behind in terms of the amount of money it sets aside to pay its players. Yes, it’s made everything 10 times harder than when Notre Dame was going to those Elite Eights. But no, Shrewsberry doesn’t get caught up in thinking of what this job, what this program, might be. Maybe should be.
What this Notre Dame roster looks like this season will likely look a lot different in spring. Some guys will exhaust their college eligibility. Others will scurry for the transfer portal. Nothing about what April and beyond may bring is guaranteed, but Shrewsberry will guarantee these guys three things.
That they will have a great student-athlete experience for the 2026-27 season. That this coaching staff will do everything they can to make those players better. That they will help grow and nurture them as young men.
In Shrewsberry’s eyes, that’s what makes college basketball worth it, regardless of what happens with the next transfer portal cycle.
“If I can say, check, check and check, and you still leave, I can feel OK with it,” Shrewsberry said. “I said I did everything possible I was going to do.”
When Notre Dame’s roster went through the transfer portal upheaval in April — six core rotation guys all chose the portal instead of another year — Shrewsberry looked at each situation and said it. Check, check, check.
“Every single day I say that,” he said. “I have a family, but I wake up every single day thinking about this team and this program. The guys that left here, I hope they left here and said, ‘Dang, he helped me.’”
In late June, Shrewsberry hosted a small reunion for several former players. The group watched practice together. They played golf together. They had dinner together at Shrewsberry’s house. They also listened to a head coach who didn’t recruit any of them talk of the commitment he has to them.
It’s his job, Shrewsberry told the former Irish, that he does everything he can as a head coach so that they feel good about the product and the program. Not once every three or four years. Every year.
That’s why college basketball is worth it for Shrewsberry.
“This,” he said, “is what I care about and think about every single day.”
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: How Notre Dame basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry finds good in the game
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
