Just two days after the Notre Dame Fighting Irish men’s basketball program finally landed a big man transfer in Monmouth graduate transfer Nikita Konstantynovskyi, Micah Shrewsberry and his staff managed to add another piece to the 2024-2025 roster Thursday afternoon.
Burke Chebuhar is a 6’8”, 230-lb senior forward from Marietta, Georgia who’s spent the last three seasons playing for the Lehigh Mountain Hawks. He began his career at D-III Bowdoin College, where his freshman season was cancelled due to COVID. He then decided to transfer to Lehigh and walk-on with their program.
His first two seasons at Lehigh he appeared in just 22 games and averaged under 2 minutes per contest, but really stepped into a contributing role in 2023-2024 as the team’s starting center, playing 23 minutes per game and averaging 7.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, 1.0 assist, and 0.7 steals while shooting 46% from the floor and 32% from long range.
Chebuhar — whose nickname is “Cheese” and whose favorite movie is Hoosiers according to his Lehigh player profile — is an interesting addition to the roster and likely meant to be some help both on the wing and down low after the loss of Carey Booth to the portal. He is a very different player than Booth, especially when it comes to body type, length, and athleticism, but the lefty appears to be a crafty, hard-working player with some size who’s capable of stretching the floor a bit while also showing enough touch and dexterity to score in the paint.
It will be intriguing to see how he holds up down low against bigger and longer ACC forwards with more vertical ability than him, as well as how well he will keep up on the perimeter with any taller wings or more mobile bigs who stretch the floor. But at the very least, he adds some decent size and some shooting/scoring ability — not to mention plenty of hustle and work ethic considering his walk-on origins — to a roster who desperately needs options at forward just to have a chance against any decent competition next season.
This addition likely means the Irish are done with adding to the roster and also likely confirms the widely-assumed thought that Tony Sanders will be moving on from the program along with Matt Zona and Booth, as the Irish now currently have 14 on scholarship, assuming Markus Burton returns and including Sanders until something official is announced:
- Tony Sanders Jr. — Guard — Grad Student
- J.R. Konieczny — Guard — Senior
- Julian Roper II — Guard — Senior
- Tae Davis — Forward— Junior
- Kebba Njie — Forward — Junior
- Markus Burton — Guard — Sophomore
- Braeden Shrewsberry — Guard — Sophomore
- Logan Imes — Guard — Sophomore
- Sir Mohammed — Guard — Freshman
- Cole Certa — Guard — Freshman
- Garrett Sundra — Forward— Freshman
- Matt Allocco — Guard — Grad Transfer
- Nikita Konstantynovskyi — Forward— Grad Transfer
- Burke Chebuhar — Forward — Grad Transfer
