Does Thad Matta’s Retirement at Butler Create a Ripple Effect for Notre Dame?

A great college basketball coach has decided to retire, and there is an outside chance it could affect Notre Dame.

Thad Matta, the longtime coach at Butler, then Xavier, Ohio State, and then back at Butler again, announced his retirement on Monday. Matta won more than 500 games during his head coaching career, which began in 2000 at Butler.

What Butler ends up doing to replace him remains to be seen, but there is a world where this move has a significant impact on Notre Dame.

Micah Shrewsberry's Indiana Roots

Three years into his time at Notre Dame, things haven't gone according to plan for head coach Micah Shrewsberry.

In three seasons under the Golden Dome, Shrewsberry has led the Fighting Irish to just a 41-56 mark. This year, the Irish finished 16th out of 18 teams in the ACC and failed to even qualify for the conference tournament.

Shrewsberry rose the coaching ranks largely in the state of Indiana, where he spent the majority of his career before ending up at Notre Dame.

After playing at Hanover in Indiana, Shrewsberry became an assistant at Wabash and then DePauw. From there he took the head coaching job at Indiana-South Bend before spending four seasons on the bench of Brad Stevens during Butler's run to back-to-back NCAA Tournament championship games.

He then spent two years as an assistant for Matt Painter at Purdue before spending six years as an NBA assistant with the Boston Celtics. From there, he went back to Purdue before becoming the head coach at Penn State for two seasons, and Notre Dame for the last three.

Would Butler be Interested in Shrewsberry?

Things clearly haven't gone the way Shrewsberry or anyone has wanted at Notre Dame. That doesn't mean it can't end up turning around, but there needs to be significant upgrades in player acquisition if the Irish are to compete in the ACC.

Would that problem, and the fact that Shrewsberry has one winning season as a head coach in a combined five years in the Big Ten and ACC, make him interested in a job that doesn't come with the same spotlight as Notre Dame?

Or perhaps the better question is: would Butler be interested in him? Yes, he's had big struggles with the Irish, but has years of coaching success in Indiana and specifically at Butler already.

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Thought:

If there is any real interest from Butler then I'm trying with all my might to get there if I'm Shrewsberry.

Like I said, it's not impossible for things to work for him at Notre Dame, and some luck with health would even go a decent way in possibly doing that, but the path to a happy ending in South Bend seems unlikely.

If you're Shrewsberry and you're thinking of potential landing spots a year from now, if things don't go well, is there a better potential one out there than Butler?

Based on what he's done as a head coach at Notre Dame, I wouldn't be thrilled with the potential hire if I'm Butler.

However, if I were Notre Dame, I'd be thrilled to get the next guy in place instead of having what feels like a lame-duck year ahead.