Notre Dame Coach Micah Shrewsberry Explodes After Call Costs Irish

In case you were unaware or sleeping late Friday night, Notre Dame's men basketball team was finishing a west coast road trip and looking to sweep games at Stanford and California.

After beating Stanford in a slug it out battle of 47-40 earlier in the week, Notre Dame led late Friday at Cal, including by a 67-63 advantage with just under 30 seconds to play.

Then, as has been the case far too often in recent years, disaster struck the Fighting Irish. This one, however, came with as controversial of call as you'll ever see - and Notre Dame head coach Micah Shrewsberry reacted as such.

California Beats Notre Dame Late Thanks to Brutal Call

Leading 71-68 with just under 10 seconds to play, Notre Dame looked to stop California from attempting a three-pointer to potentially tie things up. The Irish tried to foul as California brought the call upcourt, but the call wasn't made until well after the fact, and after Dai Dai Ames put a potential game-tying shot attempt up with 5.5 seconds left. Check it out below, then see Shrewsberry try and confront the official.

Fighting Irish coach Micah Shrewsberry tried to confront an official after Notre Dame's loss to Cal following this four-point play. pic.twitter.com/zai9rriAfU
— ESPN (@espn) January 3, 2026

Instead of moving to 11-4 overall and 2-0 in ACC play with two road games down, the Irish are instead 10-5, and 1-1 because of an egregious call.

As you can probably expect, the call was very much the talk of social media late Friday night (at least in terms of the sports world).

Among those to chime in about the bad call was former Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey, who offered the following:

Mike Brey on X:
“Push is prior to ending his dribble and prior to start of shooting motion.
College rule is more in line with NBA now and this would be ruled non shooting in nba too” - Long time college and NBA ref who is retired now and trains refs…..

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Thoughts:

Look, the optics of Micah Shrewsberry running after the official aren't great and are clearly difficult to defend. However, does anyone really think he was about to go bodyslam the official or cause physical harm?

He wanted to air his greviences to the man that stole a victory from Notre Dame. The reaction likely doesn't happen like that if things are going swimmingly for Shrewsberry and the Fighting Irish, and that's why starting 2-0 instead of 1-1 in ACC play feels like it was such a big deal. There isn't a lot of wiggle room with this team right now, and some was taken away because of a truly horrendous call.

Shrewsberry took time Saturday to apologize for what happened:

“I want to apologize for what took place immediately after the Cal game last night. My actions were inappropriate and not symbolic of the leader I strive to be and what Notre Dame expects of its coaches and educators. I will learn from this lack of judgement and be better in the future. I want to apologize to our team, our University and its leaders, to Coach Madsen and his team, and to the ACC, as my actions were unacceptable.”

What I find most interesting in the apology is that nowhere in it does he say he wants to apologize to the official. Sure, that could have been under the ACC umbrella, but I'm guessing Shrewsberry and the Notre Dame public relations team crafted it this way for a reason - because they knew there wasn't going to be some kind of physical altercation.

The likes of Dan Wolken will lose their minds over this and again, the optics are clearly tough, but even the ACC didn't go as far to suspend Shrewsberry for his actions - almost certainly because they knew how pathetic the call was.

ACC statement on the incident at the end of last night’s Notre Dame-Cal game: pic.twitter.com/NbNaMQ01Bo
— Jeff Borzello (@jeffborzello) January 3, 2026

Notre Dame returns to action again next Saturday night when it will play host to Clemson at 7:00 p.m. ET - and Shrewsberry will be on the bench looking to get things going again for the Fighting Irish.