Coach | 2024 Commit Cole Certa Great Fit At Notre Dame

Jason Welch is confident Micah Shrewsberry and his staff at Notre Dame are going to be pleased with what they’re getting in Cole Certa‍.

And Welch would know.

Certa, a 2024 Illinois guard, committed to the Irish earlier this month and his head coach at Bloomington High School spoke with Irish Sports Daily about the 6-foot-4 prospect.

“Everybody knows that Cole is a really good basketball player,” Welch says. “He's an elite, elite shooter. He can really shoot the ball, he can really score.

“I'm telling you, he's got In-Gym Range, he's really long and I would say he's a scorer too. So that's where his game has gone from really good to special is he can score the ball on you. Early, he was known as a shooter, but I would say he's a scorer.

“But the thing that I love about Cole is he's just a great kid. He’s going to be a wonderful young man, an adult someday. I know that he treats kids with respect.”

Welch points to the way Certa interacts with everybody from classmates to the water boys to the younger kids in the area who look up to him.

“He gets along well with them,” says Welch. “He's a kind of a down-to-earth kid.”

Welch wasn’t surprised to see Certa choose the Irish over offers from schools like Illinois, Northwestern, Penn State and Butler among several others.

“First of all, Notre Dame is known worldwide,” he says. “It's not just here in the Midwest or even nationally, but worldwide. So it's a wonderful academic institute.

“Beyond that, it's an institution about faith and it's near and dear to not only my heart, but I know to Cole's heart too. He's close with Christ and building a relationship.”

In addition to the faith component and the degree is Shrewsberry.

“He may not know me, but I remember him well because we used to go to Brad Stevens’ team camp,” Welch says of Shrewsberry. “I know Coach Stevens is one of the best in the business. And then being able to watch (Shrewsberry) from afar, I can see he knows exactly what he's doing in terms of his Penn State teams and how they play.

“There were a lot of similarities between Coach Stevens’ teams and his. I've always been impressed with both. I know he's going to get a wonderful coach, so I think there's a lot there to like.”

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