Another Notre Dame loss, another Shrewsberry offering good quotes at the podium. This time, it was Braeden Shrewsberry, who responded to last night’s blowout by saying, “I just want to apologize to all the former players and fans that are staying with us in our corner. That’s on us. That shit will never happen again. I’m sorry about that.”
Matt Allocco returned, and SMU’s still missing Boopie Miller, and between those things and maybe some hope of a post-tirade bounce, I believe betting markets closed last night with Notre Dame favored to win. I know the Irish were laying one and a half points shortly before the opening tip. Shortly after the opening tip, Notre Dame was down 20–5. It got sightlier from there, but it never got good.
Missed shots happen. Turnovers happen too, but not to the degree they happened in the early going last night. Opponents will occasionally outrebound even a good rebounding team, but again, last night was worse than that. The defensive effort wasn’t there. There was little effort on the glass. It would be one thing if Notre Dame came out after Sunday’s blowup and clanked a bunch of threes. Instead, these guys came out and let a mediocre team walk all over them. If asked to rank this year’s terrible performances, I’d rank it second. I think it was worse than the showing against Virginia Tech.
I still like that Micah Shrewsberry defended his players on Sunday night. A big part of me thinks coaches should always publicly defend their players. But at the same time, these players are the problem, both in ways they can and can’t control. No, they’re not particularly talented. But they’re also pushovers out there, or at least they have been most of this season. It’s not all of them. It’s not every time. But it’s enough of the team to make “pushover” the overarching identity.
So, as we keep saying: The talent will improve, but the identity needs to change. It can be as simple as reverting to last year’s identity from conference play—a team who’ll take its licks and get back up and make teams earn their baskets. We don’t need to see Heat Culture to feel ok about this program.
There are still a few games left, and this is college basketball, and it’s possible to pick up momentum in little ways. That’s what happened last year with those upsets of Wake Forest and Clemson on the final homestand. But if things keep going the way they’re going, the big question for Micah Shrewsberry going forward is going to be how he manages a locker room. We expected this team to be frequently physically overmatched. We didn’t expect them to wilt so easily in the face of adversity. More and more, the story of this season reduces down to that.
Next up—on Saturday—is Pitt, another wet fart of a basketball team who anyone with pride should be able to beat at home. Notre Dame should open as about a four-point underdog.
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