ATLANTIC COAST CONFERENCE BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAY

October 25, 2023

Micah Shrewsberry

Kebba Nije

Matt Zona

Notre Dame Fighting Irish

Men's Press Conference

Q. Matt, when you think about the transition with Notre Dame basketball, what are you excited about? Where do you have thoughts about how the first part of the season could shake out? Give us a general sense of where we stand right now.

MATT ZONA: I'm really excited about it. I think we've got a really good, hungry group of guys who want to compete, want to win. We're going to show that. We're going to try and be the hardest working team in the country, the hardest praying team and the toughest team in the country, and with that will come results.

So we're really excited to get this thing going.

Q. With you being the elder statesman, the old man of the group, what's the thought process about trying to get folks acclimated to Notre Dame? There's a new system in place, but when it comes to the campus and the culture, do you have a role in trying to get folks in the right place?

MATT ZONA: I joke about it that I grew up pretty quickly. I played a lot of guys who were fifth and sixth year seniors last year, and now I'm only 21 but I'm the older statesman of the team. But just trying to help these guys with anything I can around campus, the day-to-day grind of being a Notre Dame student-athlete I think is something unique compared to other schools around the country.

So helping them as best I can navigate that is something I've tried to do.

Q. Given the transition, it's probably going to take a while to have Coach put his system into place, but a system we like asking, do you have to win a championship in order to call it a successful season?

MATT ZONA: I think at the end of the day you have to be the last team standing in our minds to be a successful season. Our goal is to play deep into March and cut down the net. Anything short of that would be doing ourselves a disservice.

But along the way, there's a lot of lessons to be learned, and we're just really excited to get this thing going.

Q. What have you worked on during the off-season?

MATT ZONA: I've tried to get myself in better shape to be able to handle the full workload of an ACC schedule. And.

Along with that, trying to become more of a complete player, whether that be becoming a better shooter, better passer, better dribbler, and defending the basketball.

Q. What's the biggest difference between Coach Brey's approach offensively and Coach Shrewsberry's approach?

MATT ZONA: I think they both have a lot of similarities and differences. Coach Brey maybe was more focused on vibes, if that's a good way to put it, but it was all about guys just playing with a ton of freedom.

Where we do have a ton of freedom in Coach Shrew's offense, but it's controlled freedom and doing it correctly, and I think that's the main takeaway I've gotten.

Q. Kebba, why did you follow your coach over?

KEBBA NJIE: I really followed Coach Shrewsberry because I thought that he believed in me since my freshman year and before that. His belief in me made me believe in myself, and I really trust in where he can take me.

Q. When you think about Coach Shrew's style at Penn State and what you're seeing early here, are there any style differences?

KEBBA NJIE: I think the way that we played at Penn State is pretty similar to the way that we are playing right now. We don't have a Jalen Pickett, bootie ball guy kind of on our team right now, but as far as being able to shoot the three and playing together and moving the ball, I feel like a lot of that is the same.

Q. How much of that gives you comfort knowing that there so much transition in your life over the last couple months?

KEBBA NJIE: I feel like although there has been a lot of transition in my life, I am very comfortable with it, and I've gotten adjusted to just the new lifestyle I'm kind of living with more academic school -- academically rigorous school that is going to challenge me on the court and off the court.

Q. What do you like about playing with Matt?

KEBBA NJIE: I love that Matt can shoot the ball. He's a very strong, physical forward, but his ability to really shoot the ball is one thing that I really do love about that.

Q. Obviously you have watched this league over the years, Coach. What are your impressions about where the league stands? There's been a great number of icons that have turned over in the head coaching position. Early impressions?

MICAH SHREWSBERRY: I think that the ACC has such a phenomenal basketball tradition. I think that's what stands out, first and foremost.

You look back over the years, it's a basketball league. The amount of players that have come through, but the amount of coaches, and there has been turnover here recently. You think about whether it's Coach Krzyzewski, whether it's Coach Williams, whether it's Coach Boeheim, all those coaches that have made a change, but there's still a lot of great coaches that are here.

Obviously you start with Tony Bennett and the success that they've had at Virginia; you think about Leonard Hamilton, who's still a pioneer of college basketball; and especially for a young Black coach like me, Leonard Hamilton is somebody that we've all tried to strive to see what he's done.

Then you have other coaches that are not as recognized quite yet as great coaches, but like I know how good of a coach BRAD BROWNELL is, right, from his teams at Pacific and how they played, and now him gaining that experience in the NBA, I know he's going to have Georgia Tech rolling here pretty soon.

Mike Young, who anytime I get a chance to sit down and talk to Mike Young, I sit down and talk to him because he's a phenomenal offensive basketball coach.

I don't watch a lot of college basketball to pick things up, but I'll watch Mike Young's teams play because he is such a great offensive coach that there are things that he's doing that we can pick up on.

And then obviously I didn't mention him at the start, and he doesn't go with anybody else, but Coach Larranaga and what he's been able to do at Miami, going to the Final Four last year. I've known him for a long time. I worked with his son Jay with the Boston Celtics. He's a fantastic man and a fantastic coach.

Q. What made Notre Dame such a great desirable destination for you leaving Penn State to come to Notre Dame, and just elaborate what it means to be a part of such a great basketball conference in the ACC.

MICAH SHREWSBERRY: Yeah, I'll start with that. Being in the ACC is different. I grew up -- I didn't grow up as an NBA fan. I knew Michael Jordan, obviously, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson. I followed that. But I grew up a college basketball fan. Growing up right across the river from Louisville, Kentucky, Louisville was like my team as a young kid, so I grew up knowing Milt Wagner and Billy Thompson, and Herbert Crook, BRAD BROWNELL.

BRAD BROWNELL was someone that I watched and knew about. I grew up a college basketball fan. Knowing Duke, knowing North Carolina, North Carolina State, like Chris Corchiani, Rodney Monroe, like those are players I remember way back in the day.

So the ACC, this is cool for me to be a part of now say I'm a head coach here.

Notre Dame is special. I'm an Indiana kid. I grew up in this state. I grew up in the state of Indiana. Now I get a chance to represent one of the major schools in our state; also get the chance to represent one of the major brands in the country.

I walk around with this on my chest, and everybody knows what this is. It's very recognizable, and not just in Indiana. It's recognizable across the country. It's recognizable across the world. People know what it is. It's a major brand. It's like the Dallas Cowboys, it's. Like the New York Yankees. There's Notre Dame, also.

There's a love-hate affair with it, and I love that people want to hate us just because I'm wearing this logo.

Q. Is it surreal for you?

MICAH SHREWSBERRY: It's very surreal for me. It's obviously a full-circle moment. I've said this many times, and I talked about it at my press conference, that 2005 I was the head coach of Indiana University South Bend, and driving home -- I came straight up Ironwood and made a right turn at the gas station at Martin's and went to my house, but I would always see campus and I would always go there and tailgate for football games.

My wife would take my son, who's a freshman at Notre Dame now. She'd go and walk him around, push him around in the stroller around the lakes. Like this is surreal for me.

At that time in 2005 I wasn't thinking about, hey, in 2023 you're going to be the head coach at Notre Dame, but that wasn't like a goal of mine. It's something that the opportunity arose, and it was something that I couldn't pass up.

Q. You talked about kind of the nostalgia and the connection that you have. Looking at where the program is right now, what makes you believe that this was the right time for you to come in and to build your own environment, your own culture, to bring Notre Dame back up the ranks?

MICAH SHREWSBERRY: For us, we're a program that's really built on development. I don't think about anybody's expectations but our own as a program. So all we're focused on is getting better every single day and improving every single day.

I want guys that fit Notre Dame and I want guys that fit me as a coach. When you find that, that's when we're going to have success, and we have it.

An opportunity for a player like Matt Zona or JR Konieczny or a Tony Sanders to stick around and stick this out told me a lot about them as people, as players. But then to bring in a Kebba Njie, a Tay Davis, Julian Roper, our freshman class, those guys fit Notre Dame, but they fit me as a coach, and it's not going to handcuff us from having success early and sustaining success in the future.

That's all I'm looking for is guys that fit me, and these guys are proving it every single day. Like we're going to be tough, we're going to be aggressive, we're going to be nasty, but we're going to be fun to watch because of the style of play that we want to play offensively.

I love doubt. I love people that have a chip on their shoulder just like these guys do. I love being an underdog. I've been counted out my whole life. This ain't nothing new right now.

You might get us, but you're not leaving without any bruises or any flaws. Like it's not going to be easy.

I said it earlier, if anybody thinks they're coming up into Notre Dame and it's going to be a cake walk, they've got something different coming.