Kyle Sturdivant averaged 15 points and hit 54.5 percent from the floor in Tech’s two games against Notre Dame last season. (photo by Danny Karnik)
Stoudamire knows another place where he expects a capacity crowd on Tuesday.
“I think I told our staff. I said, ‘Well, one thing is for sure. This thing is going to be on the big screen at the Boston practice facility,’” Stoudamire joked on his radio show.
They never overlapped, but Stoudamire and Micah Shrewsberry, Notre Dame’s first-year head coach, both spent time as assistant coaches with the Boston Celtics. Shrewsberry had a six-year run under Brad Stevens (2013-19) before stops at Purdue and Penn State, where he led the Nittany Lions to the NCAA Tournament last March. Stoudamire spent two years with the Celtics (2021-23), where Stevens had by then moved to president of basketball operations.
They may have worked on different staffs, but with Stevens as the through line, Stoudamire sees more than a few similarities in his and Shrewsberry’s systems.
“It’ll be interesting to hear his play calls [Tuesday] to hear if they kind of are the same,” he said.
Stoudamire noted that their offenses have some differences based on personnel. Five-foot-11 Markus Burton (16.2 ppg) has the fourth highest scoring average in the nation among freshmen and is the kind of slippery, undersized guard that has given Tech problems this year. In Tech coaching parlance he’s a “not done” guy, their term for a player who constantly keeps his dribble active, hunting for the slightest bit of relaxation from a defender before attacking. Burton is athletic splitting defenses and has a tough right-to-left pull-up.
Along with freshman Braeden Shrewsberry (4-7 3pt. vs. Duke) and 6-7 wing J.R. Konieczny, a rangy shooter and physical rebounder, Notre Dame sprays threes at the second highest volume in the ACC. The Irish still last in the ACC in three-point percentage (28.6 pct.), but Tech can’t get caught in rotations and let Notre Dame catch fire from deep. Notre Dame also plays at a pace that can be charitably described as deliberate (No. 326 NCAA in tempo). Defensive rebounding and holding the Irish to one-shot possessions will also be key.
*****
Entering this week, 269 players in Division I have recorded a triple-double in the last 10 seasons.
Kyle Sturdivant nearly joined an even rarer subset of that group.
According to CBB Reference, only three of those 269 triple-doubles were recorded by non-starters. Sturdivant almost became the fourth, finishing with 11 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in 23 bench minutes against Boston College.
Worth remembering: the senior had a pair of solid scoring games against Notre Dame last season:
Kyle Sturdivant – 2022-23
- vs. Notre Dame (2 games): 15.0 ppg, 54.5% FG
- vs. Rest of ACC (18 games): 8.3 ppg, 36.9% FG
