Notre Dame basketball has always carried itself like royalty — the program of Digger Phelps, of the 1974 win that ended UCLA's 88-game winning streak, of Saturday afternoon classics at the Joyce Center. The Irish produced decades of March relevance under Phelps and then under Mike Brey, whose teams reached back-to-back Elite Eights in 2015 and 2016 behind Jerian Grant, Pat Connaughton and Bonzie Colson, and returned to the dance in 2022 as a No. 11 seed that beat Rutgers in the First Four and Alabama in the Round of 64 before falling to Texas Tech.
That history is exactly what makes the present so painful. Notre Dame has made the NCAA tournament just once since 2018. The Irish enter 2026-27 on four straight losing seasons, and the golden dome's shine has dulled on the hardwood. The Brey era's long goodbye gave way to the Micah Shrewsberry gamble — and so far, the gamble has lost.
Shrewsberry arrived from Penn State before the 2023-24 season, and the results have been a major disappointment: a 41-56 record in three seasons, never above .500 overall or in the ACC. The 2025-26 campaign was his worst: 13-18 overall, 4-14 in the ACC, and a 100-56 home demolition by No. 1 Duke that stands as the program's worst loss since the 19th century. It started so differently — the Irish jumped out 9-3, beat Missouri and TCU in overtime in the same week, climbed from No. 86 to No. 69 in the NET, and even received AP poll votes for the first time in the Shrewsberry era. Then, in that gutsy road win at TCU, star guard Markus Burton was lost for the season to injury, and the year unraveled from there.
There were genuine bright spots in the rubble. Freshman Jalen Haralson earned All-ACC honorable mention with 16.2 points per game — the fourth-best freshman scoring average in program history, in a loaded ACC rookie class. Cole Certa received votes for ACC Most Improved Player after three 30-point performances in league play and 21 points per game across February. Braeden Shrewsberry averaged 11.9 points per game, shot 40.2 percent from three, and cracked the program's all-time top 10 in made threes. And the 96-90 overtime win over NC State showed what this group could be when it clicked.
But clicking hasn't been enough, and the portal era has been unkind. Notre Dame added just eight transfers in Shrewsberry's first three seasons — eight players from six leagues, mostly grad students, in an era when rivals rebuilt entire rosters overnight. This spring, the mandate changed: with a depleted roster, Shrewsberry entered the portal cycle positioned to add as many as seven players, and the word from South Bend was that the program had to open the checkbook to do it. The 2026-27 roster will look completely different than last season's — a full-scale reload.
The stakes are plain. Shrewsberry is signed through 2029-30, and ESPN reported this winter that there is no appetite inside the building for an immediate move. But a .500 record — and real progress in the ACC — is the minimum ask in year four. The schedule offers a runway: the Irish host California, Pittsburgh, SMU, Stanford, Syracuse, Virginia Tech and North Carolina, with home-and-home series against Boston College and Wake Forest. The road is the test — trips to Clemson, Duke, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, NC State and Virginia. Improving on 4-14 in the league should be achievable; staying healthy and getting contributions across the whole roster is the formula.
What defined the program in better years was player development over time — the four-year guys who became pros, the guards who learned to run Brey's offense like a symphony. The veterans entering 2026-27 with nearly 90 career games played represent that old Notre Dame model, and they want to finish on a high note rather than be remembered as part of what one player called the program's ‘dark ages.’ Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center should be full for those answers.
Notre Dame basketball's identity is excellence as tradition. The banners are still there in the rafters, and the 2015 and 2016 Elite Eight runs aren't ancient history — they're the standard this program is measured against. The question of 2026-27 is whether Shrewsberry's rebuilt roster can make that standard feel true again. Year four is the year the gamble has to pay.
There's reason to believe the coach can do it. Before South Bend, Shrewsberry spent two seasons at Penn State and took the Nittany Lions to the 2023 NCAA tournament, winning a first-round game over Texas A&M as a No. 10 seed — proof he can build a winner in a power conference when the roster fits. His Notre Dame teams have played hard even in the worst losses; the problem has been talent and depth, not effort. The portal haul is designed to fix exactly that.
And the stage is still one of the sport's cathedrals. Purcell Pavilion at the Joyce Center — opened in 1968, home to the 1974 UCLA streak-breaker and decades of top-10 visitors — remains one of college basketball's great rooms when it's full. The students still show up. The band still plays. If the Irish give them something to cheer about, South Bend remembers how loud it can get.
