Micah Shrewsberry Finds Fit With Three 2024 Notre Dame Signees

The coaching staff may not matter and the sport may not even matter.

When it comes to recruiting student-athletes to Notre Dame, nothing seems to matter as much as “fit.”

As Micah Shrewsberry introduced his first full recruiting class at Notre Dame on Wednesday, the first-year Irish head coach and his Director of Recruiting Brian Snow repeatedly hit on that theme.

“These kids want to be here first and foremost,” Shrewsberry said of guard Cole Certa‍, swingman Sir Mohammed‍ and forward Garrett Sundra‍, who all delivered National Letters of Intent on Wednesday.

Location doesn’t matter to Shrewsberry.

“We'll recruit anywhere,” he said. “We are here in Indiana and there's good players here, but there's good players everywhere.”

Star rankings and NBA futures don’t matter so much either.

“If somebody's a good fit, we're going to recruit them,” Shrewsberry reiterated. “That's it. If you're a good player and you're a good fit for Notre Dame and you're a good fit for our basketball program, we're going to recruit you. If you're not, we're not. I'm not going to recruit some guy that's a one-and-done if he's not going to fit us.

“I've got to find guys that fit me. If that guy is the Top 10 player in the country, I'm going to recruit him because I know he fits me. If he's the 480th player in the country, I'm going to recruit him because I know he fits me because I'm coaching him. 

“You don't coach paper. You don't get to coach a ranking. You don't coach a star. You coach people. And I recruit people because I believe in them. So we're going to take the best, whoever the best is. If there's a top 10 player that's here, that's close, then we're going to go get him. We're going to go after him and I'm going to make him a priority. If he's further away, then we'll do the same exact thing. If they fit us. We don't change for somebody else. They've got to become us.”

When it comes to identifying those fits, at least two qualities matter to Shrewsberry’s staff, winning and the ability to be coached.

“They'll do anything it takes to win,” Shrewsberry said of the trio he signed on Wednesday. “You think about Garrett Sundra, whose high school team has probably eight Division-I guys on it.”

Indeed, on Wednesday alone, the Virginia standout watched two of his Paul VI Catholic classmates sign with Duke, one sign with UConn and another sign with Rhode Island.

“So his numbers…might not jump through the roof,” Shrewsberry continued. “But he's not going to (Paul VI Catholic coach Glenn) Farello or those coaches and asking 'How can I get more shots? How can I do more of this?' 

“He's saying, 'How can I help us win?' I think you see the same thing with Sir and with Cole. These guys are just winners in their toughness and they want to do whatever it takes. When you have guys like that, it's just setting our culture up for who we want to be and how we want to operate.”

Shrewsberry singled out Myers Park High School head coach Scott Taylor for properly preparing Mohammed for college basketball.

“Some of the stuff that they're doing, his coaches at his high school, they're doing some of the same things that we're doing,” Shrewsberry said of Mohammed. “He's being really coached at the high school level. 

“Same with Cole, same with Garrett. These guys are going to come in at an advanced stage because they've been coached before they got here. 

“So that's what I look for; guys that play in competitive environments, guys that have been coached and guys that want to do whatever it takes to help Notre Dame be successful.”