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SOUTH BEND — Meatloaf, the late singer and not the late supper, was OK with it.
Notre Dame basketball head coach Micah Shrewsberry was not.
Coming clear of the January 21 loss at North Carolina, Shrewsberry leaned against a wall in the bowels of the Smith Center and leaned into a different kind of future practice plan. For the Irish to be better on the road in league play, to be better against the elite teams in league play, he vowed that they would have to get tougher.
Shrewsberry said that night that he had been too soft on his players in practices to date. The intensity needed to be ratcheted up. If that meant diving on the floor for more 50-50 loose balls, so be it. If that meant harder screens or better boxouts, so be it. If that meant some hurt feelings, so be it.
To be better, they had to compete harder, and for longer stretches so that games like the one against North Carolina, a 91-69 loss, would not be repeated.
Next time out, Notre Dame showed a different level of toughness and resolve in erasing a 13-point deficit in the second half for a 68-64 win over Boston College, which snapped a five-game Atlantic Coast Conference losing streak. The next game, Notre Dame took No. 17 Virginia to double overtime before a 100-97 loss.
Despite letting go of a 19-point lead, Shrewsberry was good with his team’s grit and grind and resiliency in a game that featured nine ties and 14 lead changes. Even in a loss, that toughness was clear.
“We didn’t win the Virginia game, but we didn’t look like we lost that game,” Shrewsberry said on Monday during his 10-minute availability window on the weekly ACC Coaches Zoom call
Then there was the January 31 game at Syracuse, an 86-72 loss where Notre Dame tumbled into a double-digit deficit in the…
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Publish date : 2026-02-03 18:10:00
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