Micah Shrewsberry accepts criticism, defends players amid struggles

Micah Shrewsberry accepted criticism for Notre Dame’s third straight loss Saturday, this time at the hands of Virginia Tech.

The 65-63 loss was particularly frustrating considering the Fighting Irish had a seven-point lead at halftime. But, Shrewsberry is putting it all on him.

Don’t blame anybody else but the coach!

“Credit to Virginia Tech for a hard-fought game,” Shrewsberry said. “Thought those guys played really well when they needed to.

“For us, we got a group of guys that are hurting right now. Got a group of guys that are disappointed. Nobody’s hurting more than we are. Nobody’s putting in the time and the effort that we are. And when you don’t get the results, you gotta keep going back out there and being vulnerable and putting yourself back out there with no promise that it’s going your way.”

That’s when Shrewsberry, like any good coach would do, put it all on himself and defended his players following a tough loss.

“I deserve every bit of criticism that is coming this way,” Shrewsberry said. “And I’ll sit here and I’ll own it and I’ll take it. But nobody’s hurting more than our guys. Nobody’s hurting more than them. Nobody wants this more than them. They’re fighting, they’re fighting, they’re fighting. They’re getting back to doing stuff. I still believe in those guys.”

Sometimes it’s mental, rather than physical, when it comes to close losses like this. But Shrewsberry put the onus on him throughout his entire postgame press conference.

“No, I gotta be better for them,” Shrewsberry said. “I’ll take the blame on this. I’m the one calling the plays down the stretch. I gotta put us in a better position for us to take advantage of how we can score, how we can rebound and go back and learn from it. And that’s it. You gotta get back on the horse and you gotta play again. And unfortunately, this feeling, it keeps happening. But you gotta own it, you got get back out there and you gotta play again. You gotta go to what’s next, and that’s what we plan on doing.

“Maybe it’s different play calls,” Shrewsberry continued. “Maybe it’s different people. I gotta find out what it is, how we’re better at the stretch, how we can score better down the stretch, how we get stops better down the stretch. So, it’s my group. We’re undisciplined. We got 17 turnovers. Maybe we do need to do something different in practice so we’re not turning the ball over. Whatever it is, we’re gonna find it. But I put the groups out there that aren’t scoring at the end of the game. So it falls on me.”