By John Brice
Special Contributor
Ultimately, it was a loss.
Before his team would win the final two games of its regular season, the first three games of its postseason conference tournament and secure the program’s first NCAA Tournament triumph in more than two decades, Micah Shrewsberry cemented his spot atop Notre Dame’s wish-list for its successor to Mike Brey on the heels of a loss.
It was late February, Penn State had hosted its annual ‘Wear White’ contest against a Rutgers team that already had defeated the Nittany Lions in January, and Shrewsberry was stinging from his team’s come-from-ahead loss, during which a 19-point, second-half lead somehow had dissolved into an 59-56 defeat.
After that game had been banished to its spot in the rearview mirror, when Fighting Irish Athletics Director Jack Swarbrick scheduled a Zoom with Shrewsberry, and though he had additional calls and additional candidates, Swarbrick felt convinced he had found the man who would become Notre Dame’s next head men’s basketball coach and the program’s first-ever minority head coach.
“When we eventually had that first call, coincidentally, he had earlier come off having lost an 18-point lead in the second half of an important game,” Swarbrick said. “It was talking about that that sort of was the ultimate reaffirmation for me. I felt like I was listening to Marcus talking to the staff after the Marshall game. The similarities were so striking.
“Interestingly, he told me he said to his team, because at that point, they weren’t even on the bubble, ‘We’re going to go on a run now, and we’re going to make the NCAA Tournament.’”
The Marcus in Swarbrick’s comment is, of course, affable Irish head football coach Marcus Freeman, who in his first season atop the program – and inaugural campaign as a head coach, anywhere — transformed an 0-2 start that also saw the team lose its starting quarterback into a 9-2 sprint to the finish that included an evisceration of then-No. 5 Clemson.
The other coach, then, is this hallowed institution’s new Glenn and Stacey Murphy Head Men’s Basketball Coach, Micah Shrewsberry, formally introduced Thursday morning inside Purcell Pavilion.
Swarbrick’s razor-sharp memory of that initial video call was matched by Penn State’s similarly precise close to its season; the program uncorked a torrid five-wins-in-six-games stretch that saw it have second-half leads against Purdue and Texas, respectively, for what would have been a stunning Big Ten Conference Tournament championship, as well as a oh-so-rare Sweet 16 appearance.
“At that time, conveying a belief with that specificity, and not just we’re going to get past this, guys, but here’s what we’re going to do,” Swarbrick said, “I thought that was great evidence of leadership.
“But, too, just the way he took personal responsibility for the outcome of that game and took it off the players. It was impressive.”
How does Shrewsberry, 18 years after taking over at local NAIA basketball program Indiana University South Bend, recall his ability to elucidate to one of college athletics’ veteran-most leaders he was the right man for the Notre Dame job after ascending beyond what could have been a crushing defeat?
“I am who I am,” Shrewsberry said. “Just like I talked about with (Father John Jenkins and Swarbrick), you can’t hide who you are. I can talk about myself, I can crack jokes about myself, I can do those things. But in that moment, I was humbled. We had just gotten humbled, but I didn’t try and flip anything. I was still who I was. I was still disappointed, I was still upset, I knew there were things we needed to change and how I needed to be better. I just portrayed those to him, and I talked about that stuff with him.
“I am who I am, and I don’t hold much back. There’s a choice: you either like me, or you don’t. And that’s kind of the way it was.”
Notre Dame officials liked Shrewsberry, a lot. Enough to make him their overarching top target, in a crowded field that elicited coast-to-coast interest, for the first new face atop Fighting Irish basketball since Brey was hired 23 years ago.
They liked Shrewsberry’s candor; his shared traits with the university’s mission; success that has been neither fleeting nor happenstance.
“I guess there are two things: One is that pedigree,” Swarbrick said. “Those are remarkable people to have worked with and learned from, for extended periods of time. Not a glancing blow. And six years engaged in player development with the Celtics? That’s pretty amazing. So, pedigree is part of it.
“The other is, and he said it, there are two things here cares about: family, and his team. The singularity of the focus. I think coaches that sort of get lost sometimes are the ones who only have one focus. Or the ones that have four focuses. He’s got two, and he’s absolutely committed to both of them. That’s what fits here, that’s what you need at Notre Dame.”
To be sure, Swarbrick and Shrewsberry discussed myriad components of Irish basketball – most notably academic admissions standards, Name, Image and Likeness elements and roster construction.
“I’ve obviously always talked about the home piece of it and the home part of it, but when I got a chance to talk with Jack and Father John, there was a connection there,” said Shrewsberry, his career stops including a distinguished stint under Brad Stevens at both Butler and the Boston Celtics, as well as his two-year turnaround of Penn State after time on Matt Painter’s Purdue bench. “Like, so genuine. They cared. He’s asking questions, they cared about my family. I know, look, it’s everybody’s job to do that, but you can’t hide who you are. And that came through that like, ‘Man, I would love to work with them.’
“And my wife (Molly) said the same thing: This is the leadership that you want to be with. You want to work with. And you want to be a part of. I’ve had a relationship with Niele (Ivey), I’ve known her from back with Jaden (Ivey) and everything else. Marcus Freeman, we crossed paths at Purdue. So I knew who these other coaches were. It only made sense. It only made sense that, ‘Yeah, this place is something special.’ I can recruit high-academic, good basketball players here at the highest level.”
Shrewsberry, Swarbrick and Notre Dame leaders also found common ground, and more importantly found a shared belief that Notre Dame – recently minted NCAA fencing national champions, women’s basketball Sweet 16 participants, 2022 College World Series participants, hockey powerhouse, lacrosse force – can also elevate its basketball profile, at or beyond the Elite Eights it achieved under Brey.
“You can win a national championship here,” Shrewsberry said, “and that’s what we’re going to fight for every day.”
“You can win a national championship here,” Shrewsberry said, “and that’s what we’re going to fight for every day.”
Swarbrick now has hired 22 head coaches for Notre Dame’s 26 intercollegiate programs; he has tapped new leadership atop the football, baseball and now basketball programs all in just less than 16 months.
He is, admittedly, energized by the tantalizing landscape of Irish athletics and bullish on the future – especially for Shrewsberry.
“Yeah, I’d be shocked, shocked,” Swarbrick emphasized, “if long after I’m gone I don’t look back at this one and say, ‘We got this one right.’”
Sometimes, in response to a loss, there is a win for the future.
