What Micah Shrewsberry said about Notre Dame improving ACC record

Notre Dame head men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry spoke to reporters Thursday afternoon ahead of the Irish’s game against Florida State on at 2:15 p.m. ET on Saturday at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend. Here’s what Shrewsberry had to say.

On the difference between Notre Dame being 1-4 and 2-3 in ACC play

“You don’t keep it in that way, but you try and talk about, like, home and road. Hey, we lost two home games, we gotta get one back somewhere to make up for that. There’s no better time to start it than right here. This is an opportunity for us to get one of those back, and we went and did it. So now we can’t take our foot off the gas at home, and we gotta find a way at some point in time to get another one on the road. That’s what we talked about it, we want to hold serve as much as possible at home and then pick some off on the road. And for us to do that, gives us some confidence. And now, we gotta come back and do our job here. That’s the biggest thing. We let two go; we gotta do our job here at home.”

On Notre Dame staying strong down the stretch and winning a key road game against Georgia Tech

“I think there’s been a sense of togetherness. I think you’re seeing a little bit of resolve starting to build up from our group. I’ve talked about it, the more games you play, the more experiences you have to go back to and talk about. ‘Hey, we were in this moment against NC State. We were in this moment against Aubrun. We were in this moment against Oklahoma State.’ We have these examples that you can go back to that now, they know what you’re talking about. I can’t continue to say, ‘Hey, at Penn State, we did this.’ Nobody was there but Kebba. Now, this group has its own experiences that we can lean on and go back to. I think that starts to help us a little bit more.”

On getting consistent offense out of sophomore F Tae Davis

“The thing I talked to him the most about is just his details. Just his details in his passing. I think he’ll get some turnovers where he’s just a little lax throwing the ball, but he’s been handling the ball for us, he’s been attacking and he’s been getting into the paint. We’re trying to work some different things in for him when people aren’t guarding him as much and some other things that he can do. He’s been willing to listen and grow, and he’s doing a lot of good things for us.

“This is a game where we’ll need him to take some pressure off of [freshman guard] Markus [Burton], being able to handle the ball for us, get us in the offense, attack the rim and make some good plays. At the same time, he’s guarding the best player on every team. We start the game and he’s guarding the best player, and for a guy his size to rotate and switch and move around defensively is really impressive.”

On Notre Dame’s defense being good enough to dictate how the game is being played

“We’ve done a pretty good job of following the game plan. Our game plans aren’t complex, like, we need to do our job. We need to get back in transition so other teams aren’t playing in transition, so they’re having to play in the half court. When we get people in the half court, we’re tough to score on. We’re getting them into the shots that we want them to take, and then we’re rebounding it. That’s a simple, simple formula, but there’s no guarantee that you do it every single game. You gotta put the effort in to do it every single game. You gotta put the effort in to do it every single game; you got to put the preparation in to do it every single game.

“It’s pretty cool for us to see, because I give them an update after every game of, like, ‘Where are we? What are we doing? Here’s where we are.’ And we’ve creeped into the top 50 defensively in the country. The guys are doing their jobs, and they’re starting to buy into it, like getting really excited about, ‘Yeah, we’re getting stops now. We’re doing our job.'”

On what he’s seen and would like to see from sophomore F Kebba Njie

“You can see the progress, man, he keeps getting better and better with each game. He’ll start to finish more, I think. We talk to him, he gets out of balance a little bit too much when he’s going to score, right, takes some of his power away. His base gets a little narrow. He’ll start to finish, I think, more of those baskets. Being strong with the ball is still a part of his hand and his grip strength and everything else where he’s losing some balls, like where it’s getting knocked away from him. But I think he’s been close to 10-plus rebounds the last three games. He’s guarded two-straight guys in [Duke sophomore forward Kyle] Filipowski and [Georgia Tech freshman forward Baye] Ndongo that NBA people are talking about, and he’s done a great job against both of those guys. And then some of the plays he’s making, how he’s fighting through, like, he’s doing really good stuff for us.

“You always forget him, Tae, like, you watch the game and you think they’re so much older than they are. Tae’s a sophomore. Kebba’s a sophomore who probably should be a freshman. He turned 19 on August 20-something. So he should be a freshman in college, not a sophomore in college. [Freshman forward] Carey Booth should be a senior in high school, not a freshman in college. But what those guys are doing on the glass against people, they’re going and getting it. They’re fighting. They’re being physical. So I think their best days are still ahead of them, even though they’re doing pretty good stuff right now.”