What Notre Dame MBB coach Micah Shrewsberry said before Auburn game

Notre Dame men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry spoke to reporters Tuesday about sophomore forward Kebba Njie‘s injury, bouncing back from a 71-61 loss to Western Carolina on Saturday and the upcoming matchup with Auburn. The Irish face the Tigers at 9 p.m. ET on Thursday in at the Legends Classic tournament Brooklyn, N.Y.

Here’s what Shrewsberry had to say.

On if he’s encouraged, discouraged or both with moving forward after the Western Carolina loss:

“Getting the chance to watch it always helps things. I was encouraged by how we defended. That’s been what we emphasized, and I thought we did a really good job at that. They scored 71 points. We fouled them late, and I think they made 5 out of 6 free throws late. There were a couple actions that they ran that bothered us that we worked on that we gotta clean up, but there were probably 5-6 points in that. But the exception of our game plan, what we walk through, how we went through it. Their leading scorer, [Tre] Jackson, was 1-for-11 from the field. The [Southern Conference] preseason player of the year, [Vonterius] Woolbright, was 5-for-20 from the field. It took some guys making extraordinary shots to beat us. And sometimes that happens.

“I was discouraged by our offense, and that’s where we gotta clean things up.”

On if he’s found ways for Notre Dame start better after falling behind in the first two games:

“We’ll find out. That’s what practices are for. These guys are gonna tell me who’s gonna start. There’s nothing that starts at the beginning of the year and it’s like, ‘This is set, and this is how we’re playing the rest of the year.’ Every day is an opportunity for you to earn something, so that’s why practices are so important. They’re important for us to learn, but they’re important for guys to still compete and get better, but also establish who they wanna be. If they want more, like, go and get more in practice.”

On how Notre Dame has responded to adversity after the loss:

“I thought we bounced back pretty well yesterday. We watched some stuff together as a group and saw the areas where we needed to be better, and then I think we saw it on the practice court immediately after that. But now it’s, ‘Can we move on, start preparing for the next game and still do the exact same thing?’ It has to be carryover from one to the next. So we got to continue emphasizing things those things that will help us, and then not letting go of the rope on the things we’re not emphasizing as much, and then that becomes a problem. We need to have some carryover on both ends of the court, just to continue to keep going up as the season goes along.

“Guys are in good spirits. That’s the one thing about it. Nobody — I told them, a song I always listened to, it’s like, ‘Only one night, though.’ It’s all you get, and then you gotta get back to work, man. You can’t put your feet in your pajamas and stay in bed for about three or four days. You gotta get back to work.”

On a potential recovery timeline for Notre Dame sophomore forward Kebba Njie:

“He got to see the doctor yesterday and got his cast off. Now it’s about health — how everything is healing, how he’s feeling, and then from there. The one thing I’m never gonna do is put games or anything else ahead of his health. I want him to be 100 percent healthy. I want him to feel like, ‘I’m ready to play,’ before we ever put him out there.

“So, there’s no timetable on when he comes back or when he plays. It’s really, like, ‘When is he able to play?’ When does the doc say, ‘Yes, he’s good to go,’ and when does Kebba say he’s good to go? And then I’ll feel comfortable putting him out there.”

On the challenge of guarding star Auburn junior forward Johni Broome:

“Yeah, a lot. Not just for us, for everybody. He was [second]-team All-[Southeastern Conference] last year. He does a little bit of everything. I think that’s the one thing — he can score around the basket, but you can see he’s trying to show that he’s an NBA big guy. He’s shooting more threes, he’s spacing the floor, he’s catching it and facing it. So, we gotta be good. We gotta be disciplined. We gotta get him into the shots that we want. And then we gotta keep him off the glass. That’s where he can really hurt us.

“It’s a total team effort, though. There is no one-on-one, like, ‘This is my matchup,’ and ‘If he scores 30 points, it’s all on one guy.’ No, it’s on us as a team. And there’s things, that in our system, are built in where we help each other. So one guy is helping this guy, one guy is helping this guy and we have to put it all together to really try and him down.”