Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 31, 2026 47 BY TYLER JAMES T he expectations for Notre Dame men's basketball can't sink much lower. After three losing seasons under head coach Mi- cah Shrewsberry and a transfer portal exo- dus this spring, the Irish program doesn't inspire a lot of hope and optimism. Those excited for the upcoming sea- son of Notre Dame men's basketball might be mostly limited to the people who spend countless hours in Rolfs Athletics Hall and their blood relatives. Even diehard fans who stuck with the Irish through last season's 13-18 nadir won't recognize most of the names on Notre Dame's roster. Only three return- ing players logged meaningful minutes for the Irish last season: senior guards Logan Imes and Braeden Shrewsberry and sophomore forward Brady Koehler. Maybe that's not the worst thing in the world. A program that took a step back- ward last season probably didn't need to run back a roster filled with letdowns, injuries and a lack of understanding of how to win at the college level. What will Shrewsberry's fourth team at Notre Dame look like? Even he's working on that answer. "I think we're a question mark for ev- erybody right now, even for ourselves," he said. "We want to go and play and challenge ourselves against other people to see where we're at." The ACC's preseason media poll of 48 voters projected Notre Dame to finish the season in 16th place in the confer- ence, and the Irish received just three more polling points than projected No. 17 Boston College. That would leave the Irish out of the ACC Tournament again and turn the heat up on Shrewsberry's future once more. Shrewsberry recently described this team as new and fresh. At least half of that can't be argued. But in order for that newness to produce fresh results, a lot needs to trend in the right direction. The freshness of this team might come from a playing style that's dif- ferent than in previous seasons. For the first time since Micah Shrewsberry ar- rived, the Irish will start a point guard whose greatest value is as a distribu- tor: Gonzaga graduate transfer Braeden Smith. Winthrop graduate transfer Lo- gan Duncomb gives them a center who can score with his back to the basket. "He's a big part of what we do, because he gets the other guys going," Shrews- berry said of Smith. "He gets the other guys involved. He can score himself, but he's getting Braeden Shrewsberry shots in transition. He's finding ways to get Brady Koehler involved. He's getting the ball into the post to Logan and Tommy [Ahneman]. He kind of sets the table for everybody. As he goes, I think we'll go." Shrewsberry wants to draw more fouls by getting the ball inside to Duncomb and eventually Ahneman, a sophomore center who will be in the rotation. He wants to play at a faster pace with Smith and freshman guard Jonathan Sander- son, who will also come off the bench, controlling the tempo. And the Irish will rely on three-point shooting from Braeden Shrewsberry, Koehler and Penn graduate transfer Ethan Roberts. Additional roles in the rotation will likely be dictated by an ability to impact the game defensively, because none of the projected starters outside of Koehler — Smith, Braeden Shrewsberry, Roberts and Duncomb — are known for strong defense. "They all came in with a collective chip that there's still something to prove for them," Shrewsberry said. Notre Dame seemingly lost too much talent — Markus Burton, Jalen Haralson, Cole Certa, etc. — in the offseason for improvement to feel probable for the Irish heading into November. While the blueprint for the team makes sense on paper, the voice explaining it may no longer receive the benefit of the doubt. For the Irish football program in 2026, the motto has been "Leave no doubt." For the men's basketball program, it might as well be "Feel the doubt." "We're just going to compete to- gether," Shrewsberry said. "We're gonna be the best group that we can be, be- cause this group gets one crack at it and that's it. You feel it. You sense it from this group. They're an older group, too, and they kind of know what it takes and what it looks like to win." ✦ Feel The Doubt For The Fighting Irish MEN'S B A S K E T B A L L Ethan Roberts (left), a 6-foot-5 sharpshooting graduate transfer from Penn, is among 10 newcomers (six transfers and four freshmen) on Notre Dame's 2026-27 roster. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME ATHLETICS 2026-27 ACC MEN'S BASKETBALL PRESEASON POLL Rk. School (1st-place votes) Points 1. Duke (45) 861 2. Virginia (1) 778 3. Louisville (1) 758 4. Miami (1) 753 5. North Carolina 658 6. Clemson 623 7. Florida State 519 8. NC State 502 9. Virginia Tech 489 10. SMU 443 11. Syracuse 353 12. Pitt 323 13. Stanford 267 14. Wake Forest 234 15. California 225 16. Notre Dame 153 17. Boston College 150 18. Georgia Tech 119