Ignore what the calendar claims.
Pay no attention to the midday thermometer or the late-day sun, usually still in the sky until well after 9 p.m. Dismiss the doings in other sports, be it the finals in the NBA and the NHL, Major League Baseball hitting its summer stride and whatever the NFL is doing.
Men’s college basketball starts this weekend. At least it does for a Notre Dame men’s basketball program with designs on steering clear from consecutive 20-loss seasons (11-21; 13-20) for the first time in program history.
The 2024-25 season unofficially starts this weekend with returning Irish (Markus Burton and Co.) and new Irish (Sir Mohammed and Co.) on campus for Monday’s first day of summer school.
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Here are five items that should be on the agenda for Notre Dame during the summer session, which runs until July 19:
☘ Embrace the program’s past
This coming season is the 10-year anniversary of what for Notre Dame men’s basketball? The current Irish should know. The current Irish staff should know. Everyone around Rolfs Hall should know.
Ten years ago, Notre Dame went from nowhere to somewhere. Coming off its first season in the Atlantic Coast Conference, a losing one that went decidedly sideways, Notre Dame returned the following summer (in 2014) a dedicated and driven and determined group.
Nine months later, Notre Dame had won the ACC tournament and came within a stop on one end and a bucket on the other of getting to its second Final Four in school history. Guard Jerian Grant became a unanimous All-American. Pat Connaughton became a quintessential leader. Everyone found a role as Notre Dame went 32-6.
Remember that team. Remember how it became a team. That’s not the only group to do it well at Notre Dame. There have been others. Learn about them. About their stories. About their struggles and their successes.
Bring back some of the old guys for the new guys to know. Then they’ll know.
Outside of Burton, the local kid from right down the road, the seven new faces in the program last year seemed more outsiders than Irish insiders. They were at Notre Dame because of head coach Micah Shrewsberry, not because of the program’s past. Learning that history can get everyone to understand what Notre Dame men’s basketball once was — and again can be.
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☘ Cultivate more closers
Game situations last season, there was no guess as to who was getting the ball and taking the big shot. When you have one of the best guards in the league in Burton, you put a lot on him.
Sometimes, too much so, to the point where it wore on him, and wore him down. Burton was asked/expected/demanded to do all the hard stuff. He led the team in scoring (17.5), assists (4.3), steals (1.9), minutes (33.7) and big plays (dozens). He can be even more as a sophomore, but he doesn’t need to shoulder everything all the time. He can have help. He must have help.
Drive it and kick it to sophomore Braeden Shrewsberry for a 3. Freshman Cole Certa could be a big-shot/big-moment guy. Break down the defense, then throw back to Tae Davis for a straight-line drive and dunk. Maybe graduate student Matt Allocco can orchestrate. Or Mohammed shows his IQ savvy. Can J.R. Konieczny pace himself for 40 minutes and be just as effective at the end of the game as he is at the start?
There could be no shortage of closers. Summer’s a time to find out.
☘ Build trust of the bigs
A year ago, Penn State transfer Kebba Njie and program veteran Matt Zona held it down in the low post. Zona’s now a graduate transfer back home in New York at Fordham and Njie’s back for what needs to be a big junior year.
It’s the 6-foot-10 Njie and 6-10 Monmouth graduate transfer Nikita Konstantynovskyi. That’s it. It’s their spot. Somebody must emerge as a legit ACC big. If both do, that’s cool, too.
That he stays healthy might be the biggest factor for Njie. He cracked a bone in his right hand late in preseason camp, which really cost him the entire season. He returned after missing the first four games and was a 27-game starter, but never seemed confident with the hand. It limited a lot of what he and the Irish could do, especially in the halfcourt. Can’t play one-handed in the post in the ACC.
Entry passes were a problem. Passes out of the post were a problem. Scoring right at the rim was a problem. Njie must become more of an option in all three areas this season. Same goes for Konstantynovskyi. No summer session should ever start without getting both of those bigs a touch. Or two. Build confidence for them to do more work down low.
Notre Dame did it in the post last season with smoke and mirrors. It will have to be better this year in every area. The Irish need scoring. The Irish need passing. They need players. Plural.
☘ Play pickup until they puke
Not literally, but a common thread among those good Irish teams of seasons past was how they played as one. Five guys with one mindset, one that was cemented in the summer pickup.
It happened organically because the Irish just played. All. The. Time. They mixed up the teams daily, but eventually, they’d get the same five guys on the same team and they’d just flow. They’d defend and cut and pass and play to the point that when preseason practice commenced, everything about what you need to do in the game became second nature because they’d done it all summer.
Done it together.
That rarely happened last summer to the extent that it needed to happen. Everything about that season was so new and uncertain. It showed. Why was Notre Dame so bad with the ball last season (335th among all Division I teams in assist/turnover ratio at 0.81)? These guys barely knew one another as basketball players. Everything was unknown. Now it’s not.
Roll out the basketballs in Rolfs and let this group go play and figure (stuff) out. Let them get lost in the game in June and July. It will pay off in January and February. And beyond.
☘ Dive deeper into the offensive playbook
What do we know about Shrewsberry’s ability to coach offense? He came to campus with the reputation of someone who could X and O with anybody. Need an after timeout (ATO) set? Shrewsberry had one. A baseline out of bounds (BLOB) or a sideline out of bounds (SLOB) that could confound defenses? He had those as well.
We seldom saw them.
Notre Dame was so challenged offensively from an athleticism/talent standpoint that Shrewsberry couldn’t go as deep into his playbook as maybe he wanted to do. Or needed to do. It was often basic/remedial/101 stuff. When Shrewsberry would design something, only to have defenses counter, it often became, just give the ball to Burton and let him figure it out. Often, he did.
What kind of offense does Notre Dame run? What kind of counters can it throw at opposing defenses? How creative can it be? We don’t yet know. We should see more looks and sets and everything this season. More opportunity to get out in the open floor — get down the floor — and get easy baskets after a year where everything was so darn difficult.
Notre Dame was 342nd in the county in scoring offense last year at 64.0 ppg. It can’t be anywhere close to the 300s — even maybe the 200s — if this year is to be a year it expects to be better.
There’s more time this summer to drill down on everything on offense. The cultural and defensive foundations have been poured. Defense and rebounding kept Notre Dame in games last season. Scoring more will win Notre Dame games this season.
One that starts now.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on Twitter: @tnoieNDI. Contact: (574) 235-6153.