Notre Dame Hoops recruiting keeps momentum building

Micah Shrewsberry and his staff continue to work hard to bring in transfers and high school prospects who can help rebuild the program

Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

Micah Shrewsberry and his new staff — which is still being built out/finalized, considering they just added Ryan “Ghost” Owens as an assistant coach (a guy very well connected in the Midwest high school hoops scene, particularly in the Indy area) and officially listed Brian Snow as Director of Recruiting over the last couple weeks — continue to work hard to rebuild the Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s hoops program after the tough last few years of the Mike Brey era.

They made a nice splash in late April/early May by reeling in all of Shrewsberry’s former Penn State Nittany Lions signees in the 2023 recruiting class to go along with 2023 Indiana Mr. Basketball Markus Burton as the incoming freshmen crew for the Irish, and then used the transfer portal to bring in some promising Big Ten transfers in Julian Roper II and Kebba Njie to bolster the rotation. They also landed a commitment from 2024 3-star guard Cole Certa.

The 2023 class is likely done, but Shrews’ Crew is still mining the Transfer Portal for guys to add to the roster for this coming season, including Seton Hall transfer Tae Davis, a 6’9” forward from the class of 2022 who went on an official visit to South Bend this past weekend.

Davis was a 3-star prospect out of Warren Central High School in Indianapolis and ranked just outside the top 150 by the 247sports Composite Rankings when he signed with Shaheen Holloway’s Pirates squad last year, and averaged 13 minutes per game as a true frosh with a stat line of 2.8 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 0.7 APG, and 0.7 SPG while shooting 32% from the field.

He’s been Crystal-Balled to commit to the Irish by Tom Loy as of this morning, so we will see how that turns out as Davis gets home from his visit to ND and potentially comes to his final decision. ND is definitely considered the current favorite.

Similar to Roper and Njie, he’s still very early in his collegiate career and hasn’t shown a ton of production yet, but he’s gotten some high-level experience and has a ton of potential considering his length and athleticism, so it would be a welcome pickup for a roster still needing some solid additions who can mix it up down low and on defense.

Also, this pursuit of Davis again reinforces Shrewsberry’s emphasis on really mining Indiana for talent, and his recent comments to Jon Rothstein about wanting to set up some kind of Crossroads Classic-esque showcase in Indiana with one of the other major programs in the state lends even more credence to that, which is awesome to see in such a talent-rich home state.

Additionally, Shrewsberry and his staff have been aggressive on the trail with the 2024 and 2025 classes, locking in several top targets for visits over the coming weeks and nearing potential visit-scheduling with others.

Key prospects such as 2024 Top-100 wing Sir Mohammed, 2024 4-star forward Jackson McAndrew, 2024 4-star guard Daquan Davis, and 2025 top-50 forward Trent Sisley have officially scheduled their visits...

...while guys like top-50 2025 F EJ Walker appear to be close to scheduling theirs:

We’ll see how Shrewsberry and the rest of his staff are at closing on these targets considering the current state of the program and the journey it’s going to be for the rebuild to find success, but with the momentum this new staff has already collected and the wave of young recruits and transfers already signing on to be part of it, don’t be surprised to see at least a few of these guys pop for the Irish over the next 6 months, especially if the Irish show even a modicum of progress/surprising success this season.

We’re still a long way off from the 2014-2016 back-to-back Elite Eight peak of the Brey era, but it’s really exciting to see how much buzz the Irish have once again with this new coaching staff breathing life into the program.