Everything Notre Dame men's basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry said after third-straight loss

Notre Dame head men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry addressed reporters after the Irish lost their third-straight game Saturday, this time to Virginia Tech.

Here’s everything Shrewsberry had to say.

Opening statement

“Credit to Virginia Tech for a hard-fought game. 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.

“I deserve every bit of criticism that is coming this way. 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.”

On if Notre Dame has mental hurdle in games like this

“No, I gotta be better for them. 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.”

On what he’s not doing to help his guys

“Maybe it’s different play calls. 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.”

On what keeps happening to Notre Dame when it builds a double-digit lead (18-4 and 46-35 on Saturday)

“I mean, it was different circumstances. At 18-4, they get a bucket and then we get a technical foul, so then they go on an 8-0 run, right? They get free throws, then they score right after that and it just kind of crushes our momentum at that play. And the other time, Markus [Burton] is probably out, right? Can’t do anything about him getting elbowed in the head, and now his face swells up in the middle of the game.

“But in that moment, we still need somebody to get a bucket. I need to call the right set for us to get a bucket. I need to call the right set for us to get to the free-throw line. And that’s where I sit. I gotta be better.”

On what he sees in this Notre Dame team that lets him believe it can turn it around

“We’re the team that takes the lead. If we were down the whole game, then I wouldn’t believe that we can do it. But we’re the team that’s up. So we’re both teams. We’re that team that’s getting a double-figure lead, but we’re also that team that’s letting people back in it. So it is us. It’s in there. Now, it’s about being able to do it for 40 minutes. That’s why it gives me confidence. I’ll be better for them. I gotta help them. I gotta help them more.”

On playing with an 11-man rotation

“We’re just trying to stay fresh. You get to the end of the games, you’re trying to play with pace. Sometimes we look like we’re tired out there, right? So I’m trying to get more guys in, trying to be able to play at the right pace. The hardest thing to do is play short minutes and be really good in those short minutes. But you can be really good at effort. Effort doesn’t take anything. I can play three minutes and empty my tank and beg for somebody, like beg for me to come off the floor. I’m not asking people to come in the game and give me 40. I just want you to come in and sustain effort.”

On Notre Dame’s run at the end of the first half and why it couldn’t sustain it

“We need to be better, We turned the ball in the first half and the second half. The whole game. But I didn’t think we replicated our rebounding. We’ve been a really good defensive rebounding team, and I don’t think we replicated that. They got 12 in the second half, and some key ones. Some clutch ones. We changed some stuff in our pick-and-roll defense to try to help us, and I think it did early.

“But then they switched to some small lineups, and we were trying to play some different lineups to match with them. And then they were getting guys loose at the rim, getting some layups, more layups, dunks. They were scoring the ball at the rim. That’s where, like I said, if I’ve got a better group in there, maybe we guard it a little better.”

On if Notre Dame was trying to get back to the free-throw line late

“We’re trying to get to the line the entire game. We’re in the bonus early, right? We’re getting to the paint sometimes. We gotta finish those. We gotta get buckets and we gotta get to the free-throw line on some possessions where we didn’t get anything.”

On unforced turnovers that were the result of Notre Dame simply dropping the ball

“It’s a focus thing for our group. When we’re doing stuff, it’s like, ‘I’m supposed to get a catch. I gotta get a catch.’ That’s a focus thing. That’s a toughness thing. Nobody should stop me from getting the ball where I want to get it. You can’t have those turnovers late in the game where we can’t move it from side to side, where we’re throwing the ball out of bounds or we’re turning it over.

“But once again, more stuff, right? More stuff that’s the coach’s fault. So I need to help us. We need to work on more step-offs. We need to work on catching the ball with two hands. We need to work on playing through pressure, getting it where we want to.”