SOUTH BEND — Something cool, something ground-breaking, something necessary happened last week for the Notre Dame men’s basketball program.
For the first time in program history, Notre Dame extended invitations to 12 high school boys’ basketball teams across four states, threw open the doors to Rolfs Hall and said, come on in and digest eight hours of hoops.
Watch basketball. Play basketball. Talk basketball. Live, breathe and eat basketball at Notre Dame Team Camp 2024.
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It was a first. It was the ultimate hoops open house. It was outstanding in every way. From giving kids (and a few locals at that) a chance to see the program — to see the campus — for the first time in their lives to giving them an opportunity to run pickup inside on a muggy June afternoon outside, this was a win all around.
For everyone.
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A long time coming, this is something that will stay a program staple for a long time going. Other schools in the state — Butler, Indiana, Purdue — do this most summers. Put Notre Dame on that list. Make it a must-stop destination for high school teams, regardless of whether they have a high Division I prospect (as a few teams last week do).
Second-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry and his staff wanted to do this camp last summer, but there was too much more to do to consider it. There simply was no time. This year, there was. Want prospects to see your program as a serious player in the recruiting game? Better do something in summer.
Shrewsberry knew in late April when he spoke at the Indiana Basketball Coaches Association clinic that there was a ton of interest. Prep teams would shoehorn it into their summer schedules.
“There were so many coaches that were like, ‘Are you guys having a shoot-out? Like, we want to come; we want to bring our team,’” Shrewsberry said as two teams went up and down over his left shoulder in Rolfs. “The more people that you can bring to our campus is great.
“There might be guys here that have no interest in playing basketball or doing athletics, but maybe they want to be students at Notre Dame. It gives them a chance to walk around and see campus as well.”
Truly, a team effort at Team Camp
Everyone involved in the Irish men’s program was involved Thursday. Development and recruiting coordinator Grady Eifert made sure the pizzas made it to the right teams at the right times for snacks between games. Shrewsberry’s assistant Tre Whitted, director of basketball operations Pat Rogers and director of recruiting Brian Snow, who had a big hand in organizing everything about the event, bounced between the three courts (two in Rolfs, one in Purcell Pavilion in The Pit, the old “practice facility”) to make sure teams were in the right places at the right times. Trainer Nixon Dorvilien was called to duty a few times.
Many of the Irish — current players Markus Burton, Logan Imes, Braeden Shrewsberry and Julian Roper and new guys Matt Allocco, Cole Certa and Garrett Sundra − helped run the clock and the scoreboard. Imes made a few pizza runs for those at the scorer’s table.
Assistant coaches Ryan Owens and Mike Farrelly and associate head coach Kyle Getter served as hosts/point men, greeting coaches, parents and players as they arrived, often wide-eyed. Farrelly made sure both courts in Rolfs remained relatively tidy. Never one to sit still for long as it is, Farrelly bounced between the gyms to talk with this coach or that parent, while collecting the stray water bottle or towel.
Shrewsberry oversaw everything, watching games while leaning up against the blue wall that divides the two gyms. It’s likely the pose he strikes during the summer evaluation session when he’s in another gym at another tournament watching another prospect.
On Thursday, he was in his own gym, in his own element. Watching kids. Talking with coaches. Sometimes, ducking through a wall door to watch two games on the Irish men’s and women’s practice courts. Can’t get any better than that in June.
When the day started, Shrewsberry offered familiar faces only a fist bump. Barely 36 hours earlier, he returned from Argentina, where he served as an assistant coach on the U18 United States team that captured the 2024 FIBA U18 AmeriCup. In addition to a gold medal, Shrewsberry brought home a head cold that he didn’t want to spread. Thus, the fist bumps.
By the end of the day, those fist bumps had turned into handshakes and bro hugs.
A dozen teams had chances to play two or three times. One squad would go at 11 a.m., have an hour pizza break, then run it again at 1 p.m. Another hour break, another game. So it went for 17 total games through the late morning, the entire afternoon and into the evening, when thunder and heavy rain could be heard on the other side of the Rolfs roof.
Great was the operative word of the day.
“It’s a great time, a great opportunity,” Shrewsberry said. “June’s such a great month for these high school kids to gain exposure and travel together and get better for their seasons.”
No reason for any team to say no
It wasn’t a coincidence how most of the 12 teams wound up at Notre Dame.
South Bend Saint Joseph, the Class 3-A runner-up, was a lock. Its roster features a pair of younger brothers — Chase Konieczny and Nick Shrewsberry — of current Irish. South Bend Washington also was a no-brainer. The Panthers’ program has been to team camps at Indiana, Purdue and Toledo. No hours-plus road trip for this one. Just a drive down the street.
“Right away, we said we were coming,” said Washington coach Ryan Varga. “We jumped on it. To come here and play on Notre Dame’s court is such a great experience. It’s everything.”
Washington junior-to-be swingman Steven Reynolds III has Notre Dame on his recruiting wish list.
“Definitely a cool experience to play here, your hometown college, with people watching you,” Reynolds said. “It’s great to get on the court and play in front of some people.”
People like, say, Shrewsberry and his staff, right?
“They’re up there,” Reynolds said of the Irish. “It’s definitely a good option.”
Same with fellow rising senior power forward Trent Sisley, whose Heritage Hills squad made the 294-mile trek from Lincoln City, Indiana. Lawrence North bussed up Thursday morning with do-it-all-defensively guard Azavier “Stink” Robinson, another key 2025 guy for the Irish. Greenfield Central’s Braylon Mullins, clearly the camp’s most complete player Thursday and one of the fastest rising prospects in the 2025 class, also has Notre Dame among his finalists.
“It’s just fun being up here, getting some runs in,” said Sisley, who left afterward for an impromptu Michigan visit, but who still plans to return to Notre Dame for an official visit in the fall. “Being up here, playing in front of their coaches, playing in front of other high-level dudes, it’s fun.”
Some schools — Benet (Ill.) Academy, Loyola (Ill.) Academy, Plainfield, Winton Woods from Cincinnati — didn’t have a rising senior with high-major offers. That didn’t matter. Saint Xavier from Louisville might have someone that Notre Dame is interested in in rising junior Jeremiah Jackson. But when your head coach played college basketball at Hanover College with the Irish head coach, you pile your kids and assistants into a pair of SUVs and point them north.
“This is an opportunity for our kids to do something that that they’ve never experienced and play some of Indiana’s best teams, learn how to compete,” said veteran St. X head coach Kevin Klein, who just completed his 16th season. “We’re about bonding as a group off the court and this is one big part of helping us become a better team. It’s a home run for us.”
Klein was a groomsman in Shrewsberry’s wedding; Shrewsberry was a groomsman in Klein’s wedding. Klein’s also close with Getter, a fellow Hanover graduate. So, Klein and his guys were all in.
“You could just tell the kids’ vibes when we got out of our rentals in the parking lot just how excited they were,” he said. “To get this experience is pretty special for our guys.”
His run of games done, Klein’s biggest concern while carrying out five pizza boxes was how to maneuver through traffic and construction on I-465 going home. Eight hours after everything started, the last game of the day/night ended. With it, the first Notre Dame Team Camp was complete.
First, but not the last. Not a chance.
“We’ll keep adding more teams and giving them the chance to have the exposure to our university, our facilities,” Shrewsberry said. “This is something we’re going to continue to do every year.”
Great.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.