Micah Shrewsberry transcript: Notre Dame head coach reflects on season’s failures

Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry spoke to reporters after his team’s 97-73 loss to SMU, in a game that was not as close as the final score indicates.

Here’s everything Shrewsberry had to say.

On what happened to Notre Dame during SMU’s 25-5 start

“Just like for us, the last two days, the word that’s been on our whiteboard and what we’ve talked about in huddles and everything else is just urgency. And we just didn’t have it. We just didn’t bring it. And I talked to our guys in the locker room about, you know, it’s a new territory. Last year’s team, there might’ve been times at [North] Carolina, a couple other places where we just got blown out, and we’re less talented than other people. But we continued to fight, we continued to scratch, we continued to claw. But this was the first time I haven’t seen this group have that same fight at the start.

“We had it late. I’m proud of the guys that — different guys stepped up and played hard in the second half, but we didn’t play with any sense of urgency. And that’s on me for not getting them ready. We got five guaranteed games left. You’re not guaranteed tomorrow, let alone what happens in March sometime. So don’t take anything for granted, and that’s, for me, that’s the most disappointing thing. We can get beat. People can out-execute us. People can out-talent us. They can do a lot of things, but they should never out-execute us.”

On if it’s on the players to execute and care

“We’re all in this together. We win together and we lose together. And that’s a big part of it. They’re taking their cues from me, so maybe I need to change what we’re doing in practice. Maybe I need to change what we’re doing in shootaround or whatever it is, but we can’t come out like this. We can’t come out like this. So like I said, it’s new territory. I need to figure out what it is, why it is that we started this way. Because we haven’t done this. We’ve been in games. We’ve played well. We’ve started well. We may not score the ball. Maybe we haven’t gotten stops. But it’s like 8-6, 6-4. We’ve been in it, and right from the start, we just didn’t have that look in our eyes.”

On sitting Markus Burton to start the second half

“You get to that point right there in that game, in this game, you’re just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. I thought the five guys that we started, I thought they did a pretty good job in the first half. So now, let’s keep rolling with that group. Maybe they weren’t in together, but at different times. Maybe they can spur us to something, right? You were just hoping for some kind of juice and some kind of energy, and I thought maybe those five guys could provide it.”

On why Notre Dame got away from its ‘scratch and claw’ identity this season

“I don’t know. Maybe we — confidence is a crazy thing. Maybe we believe in ourselves too much. Because like, last year’s team knew that if we didn’t scrap, if we didn’t claw, if we didn’t hold people to 50 points, then we had zero chance. I’ve done a poor job defensively with this group from the start, that we don’t have that same grittiness and toughness and identity.

“Those are things that you go back and you think about this season and things that we didn’t do in the fall, in the preseason that we normally do, that we didn’t, that probably build a little more toughness, that probably build a little bit more resolve. But also, you play in the summer, you play extra games, you practice extra time, you’re kind of worried about fatigue factor, so you cut some things out. But, like, some of that was our identity. Now I’m coming back to find out, some of the things we were doing was our identity. Some of that was our resolve. Some of that was our toughness. We’re doing tough things together. So now, when you get in the game, you continue to do that.

“So like I said, it falls on me. But it also, like, it’ll never happen again. I can tell you that much. And we got five games left. People might beat us, but there won’t be a one where we’re not competing. Because I’m just gonna play those dudes that are. I got a chance to — [LaPhonso Ellis] was in there afterwards. I told him, I said, ‘All your guys that you talk to. All these former guys that reached out to me in the last couple days, that’s a slap in their face. That ain’t Notre Dame basketball. What we’re doing now, what we have now, it all comes from what they did. And for us to not compete is a slap in their face.’

“I apologize to all those guys that put in blood, sweat and tears for this program. The fans that are still out there fighting for us, man. I apologize to them, because that there, that’s not Notre Dame basketball. That’s why I said, ‘This is rock bottom,’ because it ain’t gonna be like this anymore. I need five guys and all my timeouts. That’s it.”

On how Notre Dame can mitigate its disadvantage on the glass and on points in the paint

“That was — like, I got the stat sheet at halftime and after the game. Sometimes you think about game plans on offense and defense, it’s like, ‘What could we have done better here? What could we have done better there?’ This stat sheet doesn’t mean anything to me, because we didn’t do the things that would allow this to matter. If we had played our tails off and they had doubled us up on the glass, I’d be like, ‘Uh oh. SMU’s either a bad matchup or we got an issue.’ But we haven’t been that group on the glass. I know big fella, he’s huge, man. He’s a monster. But we haven’t been that on the glass, and that’s why I’m like, ‘This stat sheet doesn’t mean anything.’

“Our effort. Our effort. It’s about — you don’t even know if a game plan works. What good is this film gonna do? Like, zero. If we play SMU again, you can’t go back and watch this game. Sometimes it’s about going back and doing things harder and doing it better to see if a game plan works, and then you can change it. We didn’t do it harder or better, so I have no idea.

“I apologize to Coach [Mike] Farrelly for taking so much time to scout these guys and watching all that film, just because I gotta get these guys ready to go, man. I gotta get us to play with more urgency. Because SMU is, right? They’re trying to get in the tournament. I gotta come in there, I don’t walk in here and just be chilling. They’re trying to make it. They’re scrapping and clawing, too. We should be scrapping and clawing for Notre Dame.”

On if there’s a player he expects to be able to give Notre Dame a spark when the effort isn’t there

“No. I mean, you’re just trying different things, right? You go into a game thinking about different stuff. I wanted to play more shooting. I wanted to play Cole [Certa] and Braeden [Shrewsberry] together early to try to space the floor for Markus and Tae. Alright, but then you gotta scrap everything when it’s like, ‘Uh-oh. We’re not quite here yet.’ Now it’s like, ‘Alright, let’s throw that out the window. We gotta get to something else to give us a fire, to give us a fight.’

“I know that there’s guys, man, like it’s the end. The clock is ticking. Matt Allocco is emotional in the timeouts, because he’s playing through injury because he wanted to come back and fight for these guys. [Julian] Roper and JR [Konieczny] and how they’re fighting, they’re trying, they’re giving everything they got. Even Nikita, with the fouls, they’re trying. They’re giving everything they got. Even Nikita [Konstantynovskyi] with the fouls, just trying to battle and give everything you got. Rick Pitino said it the other day, you flip that hourglass over, man, it’s almost running out. It’s almost running out on some people’s careers.

“If I’m a freshman, I’m a sophomore, whatever, I’m not thinking about the end. I’m thinking about this season. I got next year, I got this and that. But these guys might not have another practice. They might not have another game. You gotta give everything you got for those guys. You gotta think outside of yourself and think about those guys. Because, as their season end, their careers end, it means you’re one step closer to yours doing the exact same thing. So don’t leave anything to chance. Don’t say, like, ‘Man, I got next year, I can do this and that.’ You’re not guaranteed next year. You’re not guaranteed anything. And you gotta give everything you have for those guys.”

Final statement

“Sixteen news now mic, I apologize.”