Notre Dame basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry spoke ahead of Tuesday's matchup with Missouri.
On how he would grade Notre Dame’s trip to Vegas:
“I don't know how to grade it, right? It was three separate games, none of which were the exact same, right? I don't know if we can just group them all into one thing. I still think there's areas where I thought we did good things. There's areas where we probably didn't do good things. We've got to keep improving.
“I guess that would be a C, right? If you're doing good things, you're not doing good things. You're somewhere in the middle. I think we're right in the middle with our performance and what we did. There's things to build off of. There's things we've got to keep doing and keep improving on and there's areas we've got to keep growing.”
On if hitting shots early can lead to better starts:
“Yeah, I think so. I think Houston was a little different. We played on our heels from the start. Other than that, how we come out, how we start games, what we do, our shot making. We've got to help each other. It's something we've been working on here since we've been back.
“How do we keep getting better? What do we keep doing? How do we get playmakers and shot makers on the same page? As we start to grow there, I think that'll help us a little bit more. But it's having a group, having a consistent group, sticking with what we do and just keep trying to get better so we start better, so we compete better right from the jump.”
On Notre Dame debuting at 86 in the NET rankings and the importance of facing two teams this week in the 50s:
“I don't think we necessarily look at it as NET. I think your NET’s going to change. It's going to move up and down, especially with today being day one. But we have two really good teams that we're going to play. This isn't anything to do with the NET. This has to do with us playing better.
“We had three tests, and now we've got two more upcoming. It's two teams that will test you. Missouri's a good team. They come in here undefeated. Dennis Gates has had them in the tournament two out of the three years he's been there. They're feeling good. They're comfortable. They are one of the best offensive teams in the country right now and one of the best rebounding teams in the country right now. So it's a great test.
“Then you follow it up on Friday with one of the hottest teams in the country in TCU and what they did. It's all about how we prepare. It's all about how we play. But you get a chance to see, have we made improvements from the last time out to this time?”
On how to attack Missouri’s tall roster:
“They're a big team. We've played big teams, right? They play in a different way. They've been great in the paint. They're top five in the country in two-point percentage, top five in the country in offensive rebounds. That's an area where we've got to get better.
“We didn't handle it well against Kansas and against Houston. This is the next chance to see how we rebound better against a team that's big, right? Just got to play that way. We have some big guys, too. They play big sometimes. But it's all about our total team, our total team effort. You can see that.”
On some of the areas they can improve on to be a championship team like Houston:
“The biggest thing is, like, we cut it to four points and give up an offensive rebound. Those are small things right there. Everybody gives up offensive rebounds. It's not like we're the only team in the country not doing it. It's not like you can't win a championship if you give up an offensive rebound. But in the guts of the game, those might be the most important plays.
“Those little details is where we need to increase the most right now. As our details get better, the better we'll be as a team. Houston plays with championship details, right, in November and that's why they're one of the best teams in the country.”
On if Notre Dame needs more maturity and/or effort to master the details:
“I don’t think it's effort. I don't fault our guys' effort. I think they're playing really hard. It's also sometimes it's maybe it's a maturity thing because they haven't been there. The dudes that are playing for Houston played in the national championship and probably should have won it. There's a difference between that and watching somebody do it.
“You got to do it, and you got to get experience doing it. So, playing a team like that gives you the experience to say, that's what championships look like.”
On how he felt the week in Vegas went:
“I thought we really guarded. I thought we defended at a pretty good level. We got to do it for longer stretches. We got to take away some of the slight dips here and there. Offensively, we got to get better and that's what we've worked on and how do we do it? How do we do it against better people that are trying to take away some of the things that we do good? So, that's where I want to see us continue to grow right now is in that area.
“How do we get our playmakers and our shot makers on the same page? How do we get back to, you know, I probably counted yesterday as we watched film, you know, the question I ask is, how many extra passes did we make in Vegas? I can probably count it on my hand in three games. That's who we have to be. We're not going to out-talent people. We got to out-team people and that's how we got to play.”
On how big a win against Missouri would be:
“As big as it can be, right? I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's Southeast Missouri Tech. We want to win no matter who we play. We've also been sitting and watching other people play for about a week, too. We're excited to get back out there and get a chance to kind of compete together and see the steps we're going to make.”
On the message to his team following the Vegas trip:
“Just keep growing, right? Today is December 1st. It was November and we still got a ways to go, right? I've been around teams that have been OK in November and gotten really good at the end of the year. I've seen teams that have been really good in November and been terrible at the end of the year.
It doesn't like write your story. There's no ending to our season after going 1-2 in Vegas, right? You sit back and look at it and it's like we have three losses right now, but we've lost to Ohio State, Kansas, and Houston. There's no shame in doing that, right? But we're all competitors and we want to play at our best. We want to win every single time that we're out there. I said, we get back on it and figure out how to get the next win, which is the most important thing for us.”
On Logan Imes’ growth:
“There was a newspaper article that talked about championship teams have elite glue guys, and I think Logan is one of those guys. Like, for him to play three minutes against Kansas, but then to turn around and play big minutes against Houston, just says the kind of character that he has and the kind of belief that he has and the belief that we have in him. Sometimes it's situational how much he may play, but he's always ready to play. I think he tries really hard defensively, starting to make some big shots for us and just gives us a calming presence. He's great to have. He's a huge part of your culture as a program.”
On the importance of the young guys seeing a Kansas or Houston to see the bar and what an NCAA Tournament team looks like:
“Sometimes that's your greatest experience. We ended that and I sat in the locker room and for a guy like Tommy Ahneman, who’s not playing, I said it to him, like I hope you're watching these dudes and you see how hard you got to compete, how physical the game needs to be.
“It's easy to sit back and watch it and say, I can do that. It's a lot harder when you get out there and you get in the mix. It was important for our young guys to go against that and to see it and to say if we want to be at that level, this is the effort level, the physicality level, the execution level we need to play at.”
On coming back against Houston and seeing his team compete:
“I don't know if we were like too hyped up to play, too jittery. I don't know what it was, but I told those guys at halftime, there's no adjustments that need to be made. You can't adjust until you get to a certain competition level. Once we started competing at that level, then an adjustment might be able to help you.
“That was the biggest thing right there is just being ready to fight. There's no excuses, right? There's zero excuses, but we've been bad on day three two years in a row. Creighton jumped on us in the same exact way. That's something that we need to figure out for the next time we play on day three, how do we be better at the start?
“That's on us as a staff to figure out how do we do that.But the competition piece, the compete piece, the effort, the energy, that's all got to be there. Like I said, that's the price of admission to play and compete versus really good teams.
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