Over the last week, Notre Dame men’s basketball picked up three commitments. Each was more expected than not, but none were guaranteed, and one was uncertain.
The big one in the short term is Kebba Njie, who played his freshman season under Micah Shrewsberry at Penn State. Njie started 26 games for the Nittany Lions, and while he wasn’t always showing up in the stat columns—he only scored in double figures once—he graded out as one of Penn State’s better defenders on EvanMiya, and he’ll give Notre Dame a competent big man, which will be needed to get through this year. He’s a former fringe top-100 recruit who played two years at La Lumiere and is originally from the Dayton area.
The big one in the long term is Carey Booth, who comes to South Bend from Colorado by way of Brewster Academy, up in New Hampshire. Booth, a top-50 recruit on the 247 composite, has a lot of frame to fill out, and that frame might even still be growing, but as the grandson of the Nuggets general manager, he has a reputation as a smart, polished player, one who might not be up to the task of guarding college big men inside (at least not right away) but should do loads of fun things in Shrewsberry’s offense.
The big one in the Indiana term is Logan Imes, a guard out of Zionsville High School who ranked as the 8th-best recruit out of the Hoosier State this cycle. He’s another with a reputation as a smart player offensively, a former Shrewsberry commit at Penn State, just like Booth. With Imes rostered, three of Notre Dame’s nine scholarship players are now Hoosiers, and a fourth, Booth, played his high school ball in La Porte. This isn’t good or bad, necessarily, but for those of us wanting Notre Dame to be more of a basketball school, it’s fun, because the path to being a basketball school out of South Bend is being a top destination for Hoosier high school stars.
This leaves the roster, as mentioned, with only nine scholarship players: Matt Zona and Tony Sanders Jr. will be academic seniors. J.R. Konieczny and incoming transfer Julian Roper will be academic juniors. Njie is a sophomore. Booth, Imes, Braeden Shrewsberry, and Markus Burton will all be freshmen. Is this all there will be?
The transfer portal hasn’t closed to entrants yet—that happens later this week—and it hasn’t closed to those moving through it either, with roughly one in five players in the portal right now uncommitted. RJ Sunahara is the only name to which we’re seeing Notre Dame still linked, but more may come, and we’ve heard nothing recently on Ven-Allen Lubin’s preferred destination. Who is Sunahara? The Division II National Player of the Year, at least by one award-granting entity. He’s visiting South Bend today and tomorrow, with Georgia and West Virginia also under consideration.
At the moment? Notre Dame isn’t visibly missing on too many guys, and while the roster as it stands is in for a big year of learning, it looks like a solid foundation is being built.
Whom the Lacrosse Teams Play
The NCAA Tournament brackets were released last night for lacrosse, and no surprises were to be had. The men’s team earned the third overall seed and will host Utah on Saturday. If they win that, they’ll play the winner of Johns Hopkins and Bryant in Annapolis the following weekend. The women’s team is in the Gainesville Regional, playing Mercer on Friday night with a shot at the winner of Florida and Jacksonville on Sunday. Florida is seeded sixth overall.
We may have a little model up for that come Wednesday morning, ahead of the men’s tournament opener Wednesday evening, but don’t count on it. If we do have something, it’ll be simple elo stuff.
Quick(er) Hitters
Coach Shrewsberry hasn’t only been plumbing the transfer portal, and he hasn’t otherwise only been locking up Imes and Booth. Fringe top-100 2024 recruit Cole Certa committed to Notre Dame late last week. Certa’s a guard out of Central Catholic down in Bloomington, Illinois. Fifth-ranked player in Illinois right now.
The football program picked up two commitments last week, with Kennedy Urlacher the bigger name and Micah Gilbert the higher-rated recruit. The Irish rank fourth nationally in the 2024 class, but things happen later with other programs. Notre Dame has 14 of its commits. Alabama has only six.
This Week
The softball team was rained out against Central Michigan on Wednesday, so no RPI impact there. They enter the ACC Tournament 42nd in the metric, right on the bubble. They do get to host the ACC Tournament this year, entering as the 7-seed and opening against 10th-seeded Georgia Tech. That game will be this Wednesday, with the winner playing Duke on Thursday. I don’t know what Notre Dame needs to do to make the NCAA Tournament, but my impression is that beating Georgia Tech (61st in RPI) would help, and that beating Duke (7th) would be massive. All ACC Tournament games are on ACC Network except for the championship on Saturday, which will be on ESPN2. The Selection Show is Sunday at 7:00 PM EDT, also on ESPN2.
The baseball team also saw its midweek game rained out, then lost two of three against NC State at home. It’s not a disastrous result—d1baseball.com had the Irish a 2-seed last week and NC State a 3-seed (baseball regionals are seeded 1 to 4)—but it would’ve been nice to win the series. They’ll host Akron in a nonconference series this weekend.
In tennis, the women’s team was selected for the NCAA Tournament, playing in the Michigan regional over the weekend. They beat Ball State in the opening round but fell to the Wolverines in the second, ending their season. The men’s team was not selected, as expected, but Sebastian Dominko was awarded a 9-16 seed in the men’s singles tournament, and he and Connor Fu received an at-large bid to the men’s doubles tournament. Those will begin May 22nd and 23rd in Orlando.
The women’s golf regionals begin today, with Lauren Beaudreau on the course as an individual down at Chatham Hills in Westfield, Indiana. On the men’s side, Palmer Jackson and Nate Stevens were each invited as individuals to the regional in Bath, Michigan, hosted by Michigan State. That regional will be played next week.
Not a lot of news from the track & field team down in Bloomington. They’ll compete in the ACC Championships this Thursday through Saturday in Raleigh. Those will be streamed on ACC Network X.
The rowing team was idle. They’ll race in the ACC Championship at Clemson this weekend. That will also be available on ACCNX.
