SOUTH BEND – Stand in the Rolfs Hall lobby in the middle of the afternoon on a late June day, waiting to talk Notre Dame basketball with a rejuvenated head coach, and you’re struck by one thought.
Nowhere in the building does anything smolder.
Not on the entry level, where Micah Shrewsberry stood for 20 minutes and offered a summer state of the program assessment. Not on the lower level, where the new-look Irish were getting up shots without wearing those “Hello, my name is …” tags.
Not even up on the second level, home to the basketball offices, which were turned upside down in spring. It seemed that all three levels of a building that sits between the Irish Athletics Center and the Jordan Hall of Science would surely go up in flames during those 14 days in April when the program was engulfed in a full-blown transfer portal tire fire.
Black smoke seemingly billowed everywhere.
Let it burn, a few former players opined. Burn it down to the ground. Let the players who were leaving leave. Let the head coach, who some wondered might have an escape plan back to Butler, leave. Burn it all down and start over. For some, it seemed the best way.
The only way.
When spring ended, six former Irish expected to be rotational pieces for 2026-27 had left in search of something else somewhere else. Gone was the hometown kid, a former Indiana Mr. Basketball who sought refuge (and a healthy season) in that once blueblood in-state school a few hours south. Gone, too, was a former McDonald’s All-American who many thought might be the second one-and-done in program history, but who decided on another year elsewhere.
Gone also was Shrewsberry’s entire first recruiting class, a three-man core group who believed it best to hit reset buttons on their careers rather than endure a third season in South Bend. It was dark at Rolfs as Notre Dame basketball burned during those April days.
Shrewberry insisted he barely noticed. There was no time. He couldn’t stop and wonder why that guy left, or why it didn’t work out with those guys. Too much work remained. To find guys who wanted to be at Notre Dame for the right reasons. To find players who would fit the profile of a Notre Dame student-athlete.
To be better than Notre Dame has been in his first three seasons. Feel sorry? Not Shrewsberry. Certainly, not the Irish.
“You’re just moving so quickly from one thing to the next; it’s all you can really do,” Shrewsberry said in his first media meeting since March. “Having a plan, putting a plan in place … from there, it was full steam ahead on putting the best group together that we can put together.”
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Eventually, everything around Notre Dame basketball brightened. The days. The determination to build back a program that has staggered through four straight losing seasons, including the last three under Shrewsberry.
Frustration could have/should have festered. Shoot some of the staff with truth serum, and they would admit that it did. For days. Weeks, even. Eventually, there had to be optimism about what 2026-27 might be for Notre Dame basketball.
Nobody knows what the coming months hold for the Irish and hold for Shrewsberry, entering Year Four of a seven-year deal. If spring was a time to sulk (for however long), summer’s a time for setting a new course.
Shrewsberry did that earlier this month when he stepped in front of a group that featured six transfers and three freshmen. Nine newbies. That was weird, but in the best of ways.
“It was a little different, but it was kind of fun,” Shrewsberry said. “It’s been kind of fun putting this group together and getting a chance to see what they can do and watch them grow together.”
That growth and that togetherness may not translate into more wins than losses come winter, but there’s no other choice. Notre Dame must try and see what it can be when the transfer portal and the cost of a roster constantly stress what it can’t.
“You control what you can control,” Shrewsberry said. “To sit around frustrated about something, you’re wasting time that you can be putting focus on something else. We just focus on what we can control and let’s attack that the best way possible.”
The best way turned out to be a way that was once not an option for Notre Dame – the transfer portal. After taking eight transfers in his first three seasons (build it another way), Shrewsberry added six in the spring (get old, stay old). He needed experience and went and got it. He needed versatility and went and got it. He needed guys who knew the game and got them.
Maybe most importantly, he needed a group that wanted to be at Notre Dame.
“That’s a huge thing,” Shrewsberry said.
That matters, even if the Notre Dame name didn’t appear on any best transfer portal addition lists. With the Irish closing out the third week of summer school, Shrewsberry senses something different about this group.
“We’re a lot older,” Shrewsberry said. “There’s a good maturity about this group. There’s a good cohesiveness from this group.”
That wasn’t always the case the previous three seasons, when the roster construction was as scattershot as scattershot got. That’s not a shot at last year’s group or even the two before that. That’s just a fact. What could Notre Dame basketball be? Nobody knew.
In Shrewsberry’s first three seasons, when Notre Dame was a combined 41-56 overall and 19-39 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, the roster carried a total of 10 seniors. This season, there are six – four graduate seniors (all out of the portal) and two traditional seniors (Logan Imes, Braeden Shrewsberry).
“There are guys that understand it, guys that can help you,” Shrewsberry said. “We have an older group and you can tell it’s a more mature group. It’s a more serious group in our approach and what we’re doing.”
How that translates come winter, who knows. This team is this team at this time.
Light a match and let’s see how this basketball fire burns. Heat up Purcell Pavilion or burn it down. One or the other.
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 takes different step forward into 2026-27 season
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
