Notre Dame: 4-star Forward Brady Koehler Commits to the Irish

The Irish have finally landed their first 2025 commitment, and it’s a promising one in the tall, long, very-skilled lefty

Doug McSchooler/for IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

After more than a year since the last high school recruit commitment for Micah Shrewsberry’s Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s hoops program, ND has finally landed their first player in the 2025 class.

Brady Koehler, a 4-star stretch-four lefty from Indianapolis (hailing from the alma mater of Shrewsberry, Matt Gregory, and yours truly...let’s go Cathedral!!!), announced his commitment to Notre Dame on Monday afternoon, choosing the Irish over the Wake Forest Demon Deacons, Northwestern Wildcats, Virginia Tech Hokies, and Iowa Hawkeyes, whom were all announced as his top-5 finalists in late July prior to a flurry of official visits over the last couple months. He also held offers from Butler, DePaul, Rutgers, Stanford, Virginia, and West Virginia.

The 6’9”, 180-lb big is ranked 87th in the country in the class of 2025 by 247sports.com, and is 114th in their composite rankings. He’s ranked 90th in his class by On3 and 109th by Rivals.

The tall, skinny southpaw is a very skilled and deceptively athletic player who can run the floor well, handle the ball a little bit, and score both from long range and at the rim, displaying a smooth stroke from outside and a willingness to absorb contact and even occasionally finish above the rim. His leaping ability and length will certainly help the Irish on both ends of the floor.

His one major flaw is simply how thin he is — larger, older, and more physical bigs will likely be able to push him around in the paint a bit early in his collegiate career. As a stretch four that’s not AS big of an issue since he’ll spend plenty of time near the perimeter and at the high post, but considering the Irish’s need for rebounding and big men, there’s no doubt Koehler will be asked to help out down low and thus will need to get stronger in order to scrap for some boards. He can’t just rely on his height/length/leaping ability at this next level.

Koehler’s commitment reportedly came down to Notre Dame and Wake Forest, and it sounds like Koehler’s visit a couple weeks ago for the NIU game went well and helped wrap things up despite the embarrassing football loss. He was joined on that visit by 5-star wing Jalen Haralson, who just set his commitment date for Wednesday of this week and is down to a trio of finalists in ND, Michigan State, and Indiana.

Koehler’s commitment to the Irish comes just hours after another ND target, blue-chip 4-star forward Trent Sisley, committed to the Indiana Hoosiers over the Irish and a couple others late Monday morning.

The Haralson announcement is, therefore, a huge moment for Micah Shrewsberry and his young program. If he can secure a commitment from the 6’7”, top-15 player from La Lumiere, he’ll have a helluva nucleus between him and Koehler that may also help entice a couple other key targets to commit, such as top-50 point guard Kayden Mingo and potentially another forward/center to help add to the depth down low.

No matter what happens Wednesday, though, Shrewsberry and co. have nabbed themselves a long, talented stretch four in Koehler who can help the team right away in 2025-2026, and who could really develop into a stud with some time in a college strength and conditioning program and continued development of what’s already a really nice set of skills.

Welcome to Notre Dame, Brady, and Go Irish (both Cathedral and Notre Dame)!