SOUTH BEND — Leave it to the surfer-looking dude with a savage summer tan and determined disposition to save the what-to-write-about-today day.
When it was time for a peek Monday at the Notre Dame basketball team during a summer workout at Rolfs Hall, the initial to-do/watch list focused on almost everyone but the graduate transfer power forward who led the nation in rebounding (12.4 per game) at Northern Arizona last season.
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We wanted to watch all-everything point guard Markus Burton. We needed to notice freshman swingman Jalen Haralson, the highest-rated recruit (Top 18 nationally) to sign with Notre Dame in the modern era. We had to see sophomore guard Sir Mohammed, the gem of last season’s recruiting class for third-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry.
Minutes before the vanilla bland 57-minute session started, Burton was sent home with the flu. Illness also kept Haralson away while Mohammed, whose freshman year never got on track after a knee injury suffered last summer, also was absent with an ailment this summer.
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Add junior Braeden Shrewsberry and freshman Tommy Ahneman, both sidelined with injuries, and it was slim storyline pickings on the only day until fall to see the Irish. When guard Logan Imes left barely halfway through the workout with what looked like a balky back, the Irish were down to seven healthy scholarship players. Halfcourt drills, anyone?
Freshmen Ryder Frost and Brady Koehler both had their moments. Good and bad. They’re freshmen.
Thank God for graduate transfer Carson Towt, clearly the best player on the floor after spending Sunday the best way he knows how to spend an off day — at the beach working on that tan.
In many ways, Towt is the program’s Mr. Sunshine. He needs it like others need oxygen. He’ll light up teammates with his words during pickup. He’ll light up a room of reporters. Sunshine all around.
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On Monday, nobody played harder than Towt. Nobody talked more before drills, during drills and after drills, than Towt. Earlier this summer, Coach Shrewsberry praised the 6-foot-8, 235-pound Towt for bringing something that this program has lacked since the days of point guard Prentiss Hubb (2018-22).
“He brings a little bit of swag and $#%&-talking,” Shrewsberry said.
Make that, a lot of both.
On Monday, Towt brought that swag and that $#%&-talking and everything else. All of it by design for someone whose next game and next start for Notre Dame will be his first.
“That’s something I work on and I train (to do),” Towt said afterward in the Rolfs Hall lobby, where he may have held court all afternoon if not for a mandatory weight room session. “The energy’s going to get low at certain parts of practice or a game, but it’s important to keep that energy up. That juice matters. People feel it.”
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Why is it important that people — his teammates — feel and hear Towt? How has someone who has never seen the inside of an Atlantic Coast Conference game up close and personal be so important to a lot — and maybe everything — this program might do in the coming months?
“That’s a huge part of why I’m here,” Towt said. “It’s a skill that I picked up along the way and I understand how important it can be. It’s something I pride myself on, being kind of a lunchbox guy.”
That was Towt late Monday morning, at his lunchbox best. It likely was by design that the practice featured an overdose of halfcourt defensive drills. Closeouts. High hands. Boxouts. Guarding guys. Communicating. Competing.
It was stuff Notre Dame did well in Shrewsberry’s first season, and stuff that saw serious slippage last season. The Irish went from 49th nationally in total defense (67.2 ppg.) and 86th in field goal percentage defense (.422 percent) in Shrewsberry’s first season to 193rd (72.5 ppg.) and 242nd (.449 percent) in his second.
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There was Towt anchoring the blue team in a four-on-four defensive drill.
“Yeah, blue! Yeah, blue!”
There was Towt after the blue team got a coveted stop.
“All day!”
Each time Shrewsberry called for a break, Towt was the first back on the floor for more. When the head coach wondered aloud if the blue team had won a drill before the break, Towt was the only one to speak.
“Yeah, we did.”
“He’s just a dawg, so I have to bring it every single day,” said fellow power forward Kebba Njie, matched against Towt in every practice. “I’ve got to be high motor. I’ve got to be high energy. If I don’t bring it, it’s going to look bad on me.
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“He brings greatness out of me and greatness out of everybody with his energy.”
All part of his playbook, shrugged Towt, who oozes the most personality in a program once filled with them since fellow West Coast native Rex Pflueger (2015-20), a three-time team captain. A former walk-on at Northern Arizona once unsure if he had a place in the college game, the Gilbert, Arizona native believes he belongs.
He boosted that belief by talking and by working. Confidence that was once an issue no longer is one. So what if he’s never made a start at Notre Dame? So what if he’s never played a second in the ACC? He’s going to do both soon, and he may do both well.
It’s destiny.
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“I believe in manifestation; I believe in what you think about, what you ingest, what you talk about, what you watch” Towt said. “All that stuff matters. Then, all of a sudden, the things you envision become your reality and then you’re confident and convicted in that new reality that you have.
“You just keep stepping into the moment, stepping in the now and you keep shedding layers.”
Get that? Get him? Hope so. Towt is one of one, in the best of ways.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at tnoie@sbtinfo.com
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: This new guy can be a key guy for the Notre Dame basketball program
