Notre Dame basketball was 9.9 seconds from history, then it melted down

1 week ago 2

There goes that.

That was the immediate reaction watching on television from 2,200 miles away as Notre Dame basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry went nuclear toward official Adam Flore when the Friday conference game against Cal went final.

A conference game that had victory all but locked down for Notre Dame, up by four points and one smart, solid defensive possession with 9.9 seconds remaining from doing what no Notre Dame team had ever done. Not the ones in the Big East. Not the ones that went to consecutive Elite Eights. Not the ones that went to NCAA tournaments. Nine-point-nine seconds away from starting 2-0 in league play with those wins on the road.

Instead, that sure road win became an improbable road loss. California 72, Notre Dame 71. Then it really went sideways.

For the previous 14 games, we had seen a different side of Shrewsberry. A more human side. One that wasn’t always so tied up in knots and a constant cauldron of anger and frustration on the sideline. One that could roll with everything a college basketball head coach must roll with. One that was starting to settle in and embrace who he was as a college head coach. Where he was a college head coach.

For the first time in his brief tenure (this is his third year), the 49-year-old Shrewsberry seemed good with not letting everything that had bothered him in seasons past bother him in this one.

He showed a human side after games, no matter the outcome. He could brush off any festering frustration and engage. He could carry on conversations that didn’t involve Xs and Os. He let his guard down. He let you see a side that he couldn’t - or wouldn’t - show those first two seasons.

Like when he walked a quiet Schottenstein Center hallway and smirked/smiled following a one-point loss that could have been and really should have been a win at Ohio State in mid-November.

Like when Notre Dame (10-5, 1-1 ACC) lost a buy game to Purdue Fort Wayne coming clear of final exams last month. So many anticipated/expected Shrewsberry to lose it in the post-game presser that iPhone cameras were at the ready. Mount Shrewsberry never erupted. He was more philosophical/introspective than lunatic fringe.

How, Shrewsberry was asked that day, would his team rebuild all the good faith his program had flushed with that loss? Simple, he said. They’d go to Northern California to begin Atlantic Coast Conference play, win two games and get it all back. Bring back those who’d jumped from that bandwagon. Get the season back on track.

Notre Dame was 9.9 seconds away from doing that before it all went up in flames. Before the head coach went from 1 to 1,000. Before it went from bad to really bad. Before we saw the new and improved Micah Shrewsberry become the old and incensed Micah Shrewsberry.

How Notre Dame basketball stole a loss from a win

Irish guard Logan Imes tapped Bears guard Dai Dai Ames on the backside with 5.5 seconds left as he gathered for a 3-point shot. Whistle. Swished 3. Foul call made. Foul call reversed. Foul call reversed back. Bucket good and a free throw for Ames. From up 71-68 to down 72-71. Chaos everywhere.

When Braeden Shrewsberry’s potential game-winning 3 bounced off the front of the rim just before the horn, the Irish head coach rushed for Flore, who was exiting the court near the end of the Irish bench. What would Shrewsberry have done had he reached the ref? Body slammed him? Apply the special head coach sleeper hold? Throw together a stream of expletives that would hang over the East Bay for days?

We never found out, thanks to the quick feet and strong grip of assistant coach Mike Farrelly, who grabbed enough of Shrewsberry’s pullover to slow him. Freshman center Tommy Ahneman, all 6-foot-11 and 250 pounds, provided enough of an immoveable obstacle between his coach and the official that Irish football offensive line coach Joe Rudolph might want a word.

Was the foul call on Imes a bad call? One thousand times, yes. Coming up the floor, Imes tried fouling Ames once, twice and then a third time (which was whistled) in that sequence. There’s more contact while opening presents around the Christmas tree.

You can’t make that call, but you also can’t put yourself in a position for the call to be made. You know what else you can’t do? Lead by four points twice in the final 29 seconds ... and lose.

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Notre Dame showed again that it is allergic to properly executing late-game situations in league play.

Shrewsberry eventually returned to reality in the post-game handshake line after his walk on the wild side. He looked like he apologized to Cal coach Mark Madsen and admitted that, yes, he’d lost his damn mind for a moment. He said nothing publicly anywhere afterward.

A Notre Dame spokesperson said that win or lose, there was no plan for a post-game press conference afterward. Maybe, in part, too few cared about a Cal-Notre Dame game that ended at 1:18 a.m. in South Bend to do media.

Wrong.

What’s next for Shrewsberry with the ACC? A fine? A public apology? A suspension for the home opener against Clemson? One for sure, two possibly and maybe all three. Who had the first week of January as the time for the now-shaky relationship (thanks, football) between the ACC and Notre Dame to be tested?

Having been out West all week, the Notre Dame traveling party was scheduled to fly home Saturday afternoon. No use upsetting body clocks and sleep patterns for a red eye back when school’s out of session. Sleep likely didn’t come easily, if at all, for Shrewsberry. He probably sat and stewed in his hotel room until dawn.

How could he have coached it differently? How could he have handled it differently? He could go ‘round and ‘round with all of it, but what good would that do? It’s still an L. What happened late Friday night/early Saturday morning happened. It stinks, but it’s also done. What happens next, what happens over the final 16 regular-season ACC games, matters most.

For the Irish and for Shrewsberry.

What happened at Cal — end of game, post-game — cannot happen again. The loss, yes, but also, the loss of composure.

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Notre Dame was 9.9 seconds away from opening 2-0 in the league and becoming a storyline around college basketball circles for all the right reasons. Just 9.9 seconds later, it still became a storyline around college basketball circles.

For all the wrong reasons.

Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Notre Dame basketball loss at California, Micah Shrewsberry meltdown

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