Quick hitters: What Micah Shrewsberry said before first Notre Dame MBB practice of 2024-25 season

Notre Dame head men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry spoke to reporters Wednesday afternoon, in advance of the 2024-25 season’s first official practice.

Here are five things Shrewsberry, entering his second year with the Irish, said.

Note: For those unaware, coaches are not allowed to publicly talk about recruits until they sign their National Letter of Intent. As a result, no questions were asked about five-star Notre Dame SF target Jalen Haralson, who commits Wednesday night at 7 p.m. ET.

On where Notre Dame is right now, compared to his first season

“Yeah, everything’s completely different. At this point last year, there’s so much stuff that we had no idea what to do. They can coach themselves on some certain things. Older guys are coaching younger guys.

“You can get a total view. I’m getting a total view, right? I’m still involved, but I don’t have coach every part of it, because now, even the staff that was new last year understands what we’re doing and what we’re talking about. So I can take a large-lens approach to our whole team, and now, take the small details with each individual and what we need to do.

“But we’re so much further along, especially offensively. We’re night and day where we are offensively to where we were last year. We’re probably a little bit behind defensively, but we spent more time on offense, because I thought that was more important for this group.”

On the expectations he wants Notre Dame to have for itself this year

“Get better every day. That’s it. That’s the only thing I focus on. If you set an expectation for them, what if we crush it, right? What if I say, ‘Let’s win 20 games.’ What if we go 20-0? Are we just gonna relax? We’re done? We’ve hit our goals? No, our goal is to get better.

“So no matter where you are in your season, no matter what you’re doing, no matter what your record is, you can get better the next day. You can get better the next day, and that’s all I’m focused on. That’s all I’m focused on with this group, is keep improving. Keep improving, right?

“If we’re doing the little things, if we’re getting better on a daily basis, big things will happen for you. But we gotta trust in those little things and we gotta trust in our development plan.”

On if now is the time to overload on defense after spending most of the summer on offense

“Nah, we’re letting it go, man. We’ve mixed it in. There’s things that we need to do, where we need to get better. The freshmen are behind. They need reps doing it. We spent two days where it was defensive accountability, and we had to get better at it. But now we’ll sprinkle it in as we go.

“But no, we’re working on, ‘How can we be good right out of the gates offensively?’ Like, what are we gonna do to put points on the board for this team? I think this is a better offensive team. You play more skill, you play more shooting, you lean into offense a little more, sometimes your defense might suffer. So maybe we’re not the same defensively as we were last year, but I think we’ll be better offensively.

“But we still need to have the same principles, like how hard we play, how hard we compete, how solid and disciplined we are. I don’t think those things will ever change. We just haven’t had the same amount of reps that we normally do.”

On what he wants Notre Dame’s offensive identity to be

“Score. [laughs] No, I think our pace is a lot faster, right? We still are playing with a 24-second shot clock in everything we do. And that’s not for always full-court pace. Sometimes it’s half-court pace, right? I want us to push the ball after misses and makes and force people to sprint back and stop that, and then have to guard us at a high rate of cutting and speed in the half court.

“The one thing it does is it helps, right? We got a lot of guys that can play. We got a lot more talent. We play at a faster pace. More guys can play. I’m gonna demand, like, you’re gonna have to play hard defensively. You’re gonna have to compete on that end. Then I’m telling you to sprint on the other end and cut on a high rate. You can’t do that and not get tired, so we’re asking a lot of some guys to play at that rate, but it’ll allow more guys to play.

“That’s been the main focus. Short shot clock. I think our creativity has picked up within our team, with how we’re getting the different shots, what we’re looking for. Each possession will look different. I think the hardest thing for us to guard when we’re really good is the randomness of each possession. And that’s where I think we’ve taken a huge step this year. We can start in some funky ways and be really random, and still get to something good.”

On sophomore guard Markus Burton’s progress as an outside shooter

“He’s shot it great. He’s been phenomenal this fall, this summer. You can tell he’s worked. He’s put some time in. And you see it, right? When I leave here and I see him down there, and that’s after he’s coming here during the day and gotten some work on the court with guys. He’s been at practice. He stays after practice.

“He’s got a routine that he shoots with Garrett [Sundra] and Tae [Davis] after every single practice. Immediately after, right on the same practice. They have a routine that’s down, then he’s coming back at night. He’s working, so as long as he keeps that work the way he’s going, he’ll have good results this year.”