Quick hitters: Micah Shrewsberry talks Spain trip, new Notre Dame frontcourt

Notre Dame head men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry spoke to local reporters Friday, a week after the Irish returned from their 10-day trip to Spain. He discussed how the trip helped the team, newcomers in the frontcourt and why this group is tighter-knit than last year’s squad.

Here’s what Shrewsberry, entering his second year at Notre Dame, had to say.

On how Notre Dame got better on its 10-day trip to Spain

“A lot of these trips are — there’s a lot of purposes to them. Last year, like I said, we had a totally new group. This year, still got a fairly new group, right? There’s a lot of guys who have been around, but we got a fairly new group as well. You try to mesh groups together, but the purposes of a trip like this: 1) Can your team grow closer together? And we left out of there — if I had to put a togetherness grade with our group, we’re probably at 8 [out of 10]. That’s how close I feel that this group is, in a short amount of time.

“Now, we have to get to that on the court. And the things I wanted to try and establish were how we wanted to play, the place we wanted to play at. So in those practices, there’s things that you just leave. You can’t cover everything in that short amount of time, right? Let’s go and be ready to play games, let’s go and be ready to function, look like a team, get some aspects in that we want to get in.

“We did that, and at the same time, we got challenged on some things we weren’t ready for. And we probably would have folded last year. We haven’t done zone offense, and some team came out and played zone at the start of the second half. Playing a zone press after free throws, like stuff that we hadn’t worked on, hadn’t talked about. And we just kind of did it.

“Early on in practice, I said our creativity as a group needs to grow up. Can’t be as robotic, right? So if somebody does something, it’s like, you have to answer it immediately. You can’t wait until a timeout. You can’t wait until I tell you, like our creativity has to grow up. They forced our creativity to grow up.”

On Lehigh transfer forward Burke Chebuhar and freshman forward Garrett Sundra

Context: Monmouth graduate transfer forward and Ukraine native Nikita Konstantynovskyi did not make the trip to Spain due to visa restrictions.

“I didn’t know what to expect when we took [Chebuhar]. My first thought is, ‘I’m gonna get an unbelievable student, I’m gonna get an unbelievable teammate and he’s gonna help us in different ways.’ Once we got him, it’s like man, his shot is not one of the most picturesque things you’ve ever seen, but it goes in. His ball goes in. And then he can really pass, man. He’s one of the best passers we have. His feel for passing, the passes that he can make — there’s a small clip, in one of those games, JR [Konieczny] hits a three and Burke kind of spins out of the post and cross-courts it, like a no-look. His feel and passing is unbelievable.

“Garrett is just pure energy. Just pure energy and effort. I don’t know his history, like way back when he was in middle school or something, but I don’t know if he’s ever been the best player on his team. He definitely wasn’t in high school, right? So you find ways to really impact the team, and I think that’s what he’s doing, whether that’s stepping out and making threes or whether that’s getting on the offensive glass. He’s got the ability to be in a corner, and a shot goes up from our team and he comes sprinting in from the corner and he can tip it once, twice, then come down and kick it out to somebody else. That effort that he’s playing with and the joy that he plays with is refreshing.”

On freshman guards Sir Mohammed and Cole Certa’s injury status

Context: When Shrewsberry met with local Notre Dame reporters in June, he said Mohammed and Certa were out with minor injuries in summer practice. Certa played in Spain, but Mohammed did not.

“[Mohammed] was back where he was working out and doing stuff maybe the week, week and a half before we left. He’s now moving, doing individual workouts with the coaches. He injured his knee, but it was like he fell funny in one of our drills. It’s nothing structural. I don’t know technically what it was, but it wasn’t anything where we were like, ‘Hey, we gotta —’ you know. By the time we got him healthy, it was no rush to bring him back.

“Certa was fine. He played for us. He got in and just like any typical freshman, he struggled. Ran into a bunch of screens, but he made a bunch of shots, too. That’s the one thing, he’s got a confidence that every shot’s going in. And you need that from a guy like him. So he was back, he was fine. Sir — everybody’s moving back now and we’ll start up, end of next week — he’ll be back with us, and back full-go.”

On if anyone surprised him on Notre Dame’s trip to Spain

“I don’t know if there were any surprises. You know what you’re gonna get from Markus Burton, but he did it in different ways. And then he also did it in a short amount of time. The most he probably played was 22, 23 minutes. I literally subbed them five minutes at a time. Like, we played 10-minute quarters, there was a new five going in. The most those guys played was maybe 24, 25 minutes.

“I think everybody was kind of different, and everybody stepped up in different ways, which was cool to see. I think that first game, Markus had good numbers in every single game, but then you saw different people. JR played great in our second game in our second game in Valencia. Like he was really good, like his rebounding, his effort, the way he scored it was really good. The next night, it could have been Braeden [Shrewsberry], it could have been Kebba [Njie] the third night. A bunch of different people stepped up, and I think when you have that, it gives you options.”

On how he can tell this Notre Dame team is tighter-knit than last season

“Part of it is almost like hearsay. Not hearsay, but like, ‘What are you guys doing tonight?’ What are you guys doing in the summer, when nobody else is on campus, right? They’re all together. They’re all going to one place together and hanging out, and that right there is nothing that I’ve mandated. I hadn’t asked them to do it. They’ve willingly done it.

“But then it’s like, the whole energy and vibe is so different. You just feel it, right? You can say it, but seeing it is totally different. Seeing this group, before practice, get together and get ready for practice. It’s a different feel. It’s a totally different feel. And then just hearing it from different parents. There were a lot of parents [on the trip to Spain]. Tae Davis‘ parents were there. Braeden Shrewsberry‘s parents went on the trip. [Laughs] There were a lot of parents that were there, and they’re a pretty close-knit group. It helped that all the freshmen were committed early, so they got to come on their official visits together, and all the parents were together and they’re like, that group is as tight as anybody. They’re as tight as our team!

“But they were all together, and to hear Tae Davis’ mom talk about the difference between last year and this year so far and how he’s connected with these guys. When they ask him, ‘Hey, are you coming home this weekend?’ He’s like, ‘No, I’m gonna stay here. I’m gonna hang out. We’re doing such and such together.’ I don’t know if there’s anything you can point to, but the feeling’s way different.”