(Photo by Michael Clubb / South Bend Tribune / USA Today Network via Imagn Images) Micah Shrewsberry did his best Dennis Green impression late Sunday night. But his insecurities revealed he may not grasp the realities of his job.
Shrewsberry is now 24-34 in two seasons as the head coach of Notre Dame, including 11-14 this season. The Fighting Irish have lost four of their last five games and are hanging out near the bottom of the ACC standings, in danger of missing this year’s conference tournament if they keep losing.
A good Louisville team went to Notre Dame and beat the Irish 75-60, and Shrewsberry was apparently upset not about his team’s performance but about the composition of the crowd.
He was asked a benign question about what he felt had been the team’s biggest issues in this losing stretch, and for the next 2:40 he took off on a hard-to-watch rant.
After declaring that his players won’t quit, Shrewsberry said, “I understand that a lot of people have quit on us, and well-deserved. If you hate me, absolutely. Absolutely, man. Great. If you think I suck, if you think I can’t coach, I’m with you, man. Good. Good for you because you’re allowed to have opinions. If you think I should be fired, good for you. You’re allowed to have opinions, right? A lot of people have given up on this team. They’ve given up on me. I don’t really give a damn. I believe in myself, and I believe in these guys, OK? So don’t give up on these guys. Don’t give up on these guys. Don’t give up on these kids. If you don’t want to show up because of me, don’t show up because of me. Because you think I suck. Cool. I’m OK with that.”
Never mind that he is not considered to be on the hot seat and no reporters had called for his firing. Shrewsberry was just getting started.
“Don’t give up on these kids, man. I don’t care about anybody’s opinion,” Shrewsberry said. “I know who I am. I know I can coach basketball. I know I’m turning this program around. So you gave up on me already? I don’t want to see you back here. I don’t give a damn. Don’t give up on these kids because we gonna get this thing rolling. I sat there and watched more Louisville fans in here than Notre Dame people. That’s embarrassing. That’s embarrassing for me because I’m the head coach here.
“Yes, I got us in this predicament. But don’t come back when we’re … winning, because we’re turning this around, man. You better believe that.”
Soon after, he took a swipe at the mic stand and—there’s no better way to phrase it—stormed off like a child.
Couple things:
1. Shrewsberry isn’t the first coach to pull this move, but you don’t get to claim “I don’t care about anybody’s opinion” in the middle of a rant obviously prompted by some hate tweets you read before the game.
2. If this galvanizes his team behind closed doors and helps Notre Dame salvage its season, good for them. It’s an option in every coach’s back pocket to go ballistic on the media and some use it. We’ve seen it done better, in fact.
3. Who does he think he is by telling Notre Dame fans not to come back when they’re winning?
It’s a perplexing, maddening and frankly embarrassing thing to say at a university he’s worked at less than 24 months. It reminds me of the New York Mets players in 2021 who gave their own fans thumbs-downs after getting on base because it hurt their little hearts to be booed earlier in the year. They had to apologize, by the way.
Notre Dame will always be known as a football school that struggles to fill its basketball arena, and Shrewsberry should have understood that when he took the job. He came from another school where football was king, Penn State.
But I’ll take it a step further. Notre Dame doesn’t struggle to get fans in the seats for basketball games—not when the women are playing.
It’s beautiful irony that the day after Shrewsberry chose to target the school’s fans, the women’s basketball team rose to No. 1 in the AP rankings. Per the NCAA record book, the Notre Dame women averaged 6,644 attendance per home game last season, 13th in the country. The men averaged 6,118.
Talk to Niele Ivey about how to get butts in seats, Micah. She’ll probably tell you the obvious: It has to do with the product on the floor.
