Notre Dame 76, Missouri 71: The Irish needed it, and took it

Without exaggeration, tonight’s contest against the Missouri Tigers represented the most important game of the Micah Shrewsberry era to-date. Expectations are for the program to be in the hunt for an NCAA tournament bid, and for that to be a realistic possibility, there needs to be a quality non-conference win to point to. Beating Houston was probably not going to happen, but opportunities against Ohio State and Kansas have gone by the wayside. Missouri represented the last chance for the Irish to get a win against a tournament-quality non-ACC team.

Markus Burton got the offense off to a nice start by driving along the baseline and hitting a cutting Jalen Haralson for a huge uncontested dunk. It was clear that the Purcell Pavilion crowd, albeit too small for a critical game like this one, was into this one from the get-go. After Haralson bullied his way for a layup off the glass and Missouri collected a couple post buckets, Burton broke the seal on the three-point shooting by draining an open one, and Braden Shrewsberry shortly followed with one of his own to give the Irish an early 10-4 lead.

Missouri was able to claw their way back with drives to the hoop, as all of their threes were clanging harmlessly off the rim, but a Sir Mohammed floater and a beautiful kick-out from Burton to Cole Certa for a three at the shot clock buzzer kept the offense humming. Unfortunately, Missouri’s bench sharpshooter Jacob Crews got a clean look from three on a designed out-of-bounds play, a play the broadcast was convinced the Irish were practicing against before the game. The lid was finally off for the Tigers, and the score was tied at 15.

The Irish were having a nightmare time trying to contain 6’9” Tigers “guard” Mark Mitchell, who was living at the free throw line and finishing strong at the rim. Making matters worse, Logan Imes came in off the bench, who turned the ball over on back-to-back possessions 35 feet from the hoop for two Missouri fast break dunks. The Irish threw the ball away again on an inbounds play, which resulted in another Crews wide open three. Shrewsberry called timeout immediately after a disastrous 9-0 run by Missouri that featured the Irish shooting the ball once. It was 26-19 Tigers with eight to play in the half.

Shrewsberry went back to his starting lineup and Garrett Sundra stopped the bleeding with a nice baseline cut off of a feed from Haralson, whose passing ability continues to look mature for his age. Haralson would get another opportunity to dunk the ball a couple plays later off a nice drive and dish from Burton:

Sir Mohammed would then get in on the assist action, hitting Kebba Njie for a dunk by taking advantage of an over-zealous Missouri zone. As was the theme, the answer for Missouri was Mitchell, who got yet another and-one and ripped Mohammed for a transition lay-in. Lasting headway against the Missouri attack was hard to come by after the rough stretch from the bench.

Making matters worse was Missouri’s repeated trips to the free throw line and Crews getting open for another corner three. He’d next make a post bucket off of Anthony Robinson’s fourth steal of the half, and Micah Shrewsberry finally lost it on the referees, which would yield to a technical foul and Crews getting a couple more at the line. The Irish were down 12 at that point, but would get a critical burst before the half with a Braeden Shrewsberry three from the corner and a Burton rip of Robinson for a transition lay-up to get the deficit back down to 40-33. Mitchell and Crews combined for 27 of Missouri’s points.

As the first half ended, there was a little bit of fireworks with Burton and Robinson jawing at each other. Micah Shrewsberry pointed Robinson away, as he was lingering around the Irish players heading to their locker room, and Bill Covington, the referee who had just teed up Shrewsberry, either said something to him or touched him in a way that made Micah mad as hell. He walked backwards to the locker room, ushered by Njie, screaming what must have been a delightful earful at Covington.

Just like in the first half, it was Haralson to get the Irish scoring started, as he drove right at Missouri big man Shawn Phillips Jr. He’d get downhill on the next possession and draw a foul on Jevon Porter to cut the deficit to three. After Porter badly airballed a turnaround jumper, Haralson was again assertive, drawing a foul on lockdown defender Robinson. It was a 5-0 Haralson run.

Missouri had seen enough and switched Mitchell onto Haralson, and for the next few minutes it felt like there were only two players on the floor. First, Mitchell did what he had done all first half to get the Tigers on the board with a bucket at the rim against Haralson. Haralson, seeking a fourth straight productive offensive possession, found Mitchell to be a much tougher customer and got blocked. Mitchell would then burn Haralson off the dribble to find T.O. Barrett for an easy bucket, but Haralson would get his revenge, going at Mitchell and making a wildly tough shot off the glass. Not to be outdone, Mitchell went back at Haralson and drew Haralson’s critical third foul.

Missouri would switch back into a zone after the under-16 timeout with a full-court press, and Shrewsberry made an interesting defensive switch of his own, putting Kebba Njie on Mitchell. That paid immediate dividends, as Mitchell was forced to resort to a baby-hook that rimmed out and then when he actually did try to take the ball to the rack, Njie met him right there with an authoritative block off the glass. The improved defensive turned a couple threes from Burton and Shrewsberry into unanswered gains, as the Irish grabbed a 48-46 lead with 13:19 to play. The place was buzzing!

With Mitchell no longer able to get whatever he wanted, the Missouri offense started to look a lot more discombobulated. Phillips committed an unnecessary offensive foul against Koehler. Then Mitchell, apparently frustrated with his matchup, shot a three pointer rather than attack Njie. He badly missed it, which makes sense, considering he hadn’t made one of those all season. A Burton drive to the hoop and finish through contact extended the Irish run to 11-0 and the lead to seven.

A bad Sundra turnover shifted the momentum, however. Mitchell finally found himself with some space on the resulting transition and got an and-one. After a missed Shrewsberry deep three, Missouri found themselves in a quasi-fast break and the Irish lost Crews again in transition, who dropped a three to quickly cut the lead to 1. After a Robinson put-back and another Crews three off a cross-court pass, intermixed with some inept Irish offense, Missouri had much more quickly developed an 11-0 run of their own. Micah Shrewsberry had to call a timeout with the Irish suddenly down 57-53 with eight minutes to play.

The Irish were dealt a big blow shortly after the timeout as Haralson picked up his fourth foul trying to box out on a rebound. With an offensive possession forthcoming, Shrewsberry didn’t immediately pull him out of the game, but did send Logan Imes to the scorer’s table after the Irish got the rebound. Unfortunately, as Haralson brought the ball up, he got it stolen by Barrett, who drove one-on-one against Haralson and tried to barge into him to create *any* kind of contact. Haralson got whistled for his fifth foul for moving *away* from Barrett, in a laughably bad job of officiating. The Irish had lost one of their best weapons for the final six minutes.

Yet the Irish didn’t quit. Burton found Njie for a wide open dunk the following trip down, and after Njie frantically fought to influence a rebound, the Irish pushed the ball down the floor for a Certa corner three to take the lead by one. However, Mizzou would find their footing quickly. Mitchell, relegated to perimeter duty by Njie, made his first three of the season. Then, a step-through by Barrett past Imes gave the Tigers a four point lead.

Imes would punch back, as he was left ridiculously open for a made three off of a great feed by Burton, in a bit of “make the rando beat us” defense from the Tigers. After Mitchell got to the line on a drive with Njie (confusingly) off the floor, Certa drilled a corner three to tie the ballgame. Shrewsberry then went to a rarely-used two-big lineup with Njie and Carson Towt, which was a good decision because Mitchell again found only a difficult shot available against Njie, which he missed. Irish ball, tie game, one minute to play.

Burton attempted to drive and appeared to fall down with minimal contact from Robinson, but perhaps as some form of make-up call, a foul was whistled to send Burton to the line for two made free throws. On the other end, the Irish held Crews on a cut away from the ball, and Crews answered right back from the line to knot the game at 69. Burton was then almost tied up on a double-team and Shrewsberry wisely called timeout immediately before anything could get whistled. There were 30 seconds to play and 17 seconds left on the shot clock.

After some struggles to inbound the ball, the Irish got the ball to Burton via Towt to set up one last drive. Missouri was determined not to let Burton be the guy who beat them, as Crews completely left his man to blitz Burton with ten left on the shot clock. Unfortunately for Crews, his man was Cole Certa. Burton found him through traffic, and Certa calmly knocked down a deep three, the biggest shot to-date of the Micah Shrewsberry era.

Crews would have a chance to answer on the other end, but he was pressed for time and off-balance, and his three-point attempt rimmed out. A gang rebounding effort ensued, and it was Mohammed who eventually chased the basketball down and re-directed it to Burton, who was fouled and iced the game at the line.

It was getting late early for this Irish squad in the 2025-26 season, and tonight’s win was badly needed to put a quality win on the tournament resume. This was a tremendous college basketball game, and one in which the Irish showed serious resilience after getting punched hard in the first half. I don’t know whether a trip to March Madness is in store for these Irish, but after tonight, we can hope.

Bullet Points:

• I’ll be singing the praises of the adjustment Shrewsberry made to put Njie on Mitchell for a long time. Mitchell had looked comfortable the entire game to that point, but then it was like he ran into a buzzsaw. It completely changed the game.

• Brady Koehler looked like a freshman in the first half. In his first stint, he got a couple touches near the hoop in good position and was too tentative to make anything happen. He threw a pretty bad pick-six as well. In his second stint, he picked up three fouls in about a minute, only one of which could be called a “good foul.”

• But Koehler got some redemption later in the game, as he was able to bury a corner three during the big Irish run and drew the aforementioned offensive foul on consecutive possessions.

• Just after the big Missouri run, Robinson got whistled for a blatant offensive foul trying to hip-check Shrewsberry while screening for Crews, and then Crews picked up a technical foul for complaining about the call.

• Phillips and Towt got tied up going for a rebound late in the second half. There was a little extra shove to the ground from Phillips, but nothing beyond the jump ball was called.

• Markus Burton scored his first career double-double in this game with 18 points and 10 assists. He only turned the ball over twice. It might be one of the best games he’s played in an Irish uniform.

• The two highest scorers in this game (Mitchell and Crews) played for Missouri. The Irish had a pretty balanced effort, with Certa, Shrewsberry, and Haralson joining Burton in double-figures.