After two months of searching, Notre Dame head men’s basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry has his transfer big man.
Former Monmouth forward Nikita Konstantynovskyi committed to Notre Dame on Tuesday, he told On3’s Joe Tipton. The 6-foot-10 graduate student and Kyiv, Ukraine, native has one year of eligibility remaining.
“I have made a good relationship with the head coach, Coach Shrewsberry,” Konstantynovskyi told Blue & Gold before his commitment went public. “Once it was all in place, I decided to go right away to Notre Dame. It’s a special place, it’s a good environment, all the coaches were awesome and that’s why I went toward Notre Dame.”
Konstantynovskyi visited Notre Dame this past Friday, after which he decided to shut down his recruitment.
During his lone season at Monmouth, Konstantynovskyi averaged 9.8 points and 8.1 rebounds in 23.5 minutes per game. While he is not an outside shooter, Konstantynovskyi made 52.6 percent of his field-goal attempts and was a 65.2 percent free throw shooter this past season.
Konstantynovskyi makes his living on the glass, finishing 22nd in the nation in rebounds per 36 minutes at 12.4. He also placed 75th in the country in offensive rebound percentage at 14.3 and 35th in total rebound percentage at 20.5.
Throughout his transfer portal recruitment, Konstantynovsnkyi also received interest from Ole Miss, Clemson, SMU, Indiana, Stanford, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Northwestern, Xavier, BYU and TCU, among others. He also took an official visit to Ole Miss, but it was Notre Dame who sealed the deal after hosting him on campus.
Notre Dame will be Konstantynovskyi’s fourth school, and 2024-25 will be his sixth season in college basketball. He began his career with two seasons at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M, where he ranked second among JUCO players in field goal percentage at 60.2 percent and blocked shots with 44 as a sophomore in 2020-21.
He then transferred to Tulsa, where he played sparingly in 2021-22 as a junior before sitting out all but two games of 2022-23 due to injury. Konstantynovskyi earned a medical redshirt, which — along with the extra year of eligibility due to the COVID-19 pandemic — is what grants him the ability to play this season.
Konstantynovskyi will compete with junior forward Kebba Njie to start as the post player in Notre Dame’s “four guards and a big guy” (Shrewsberry’s words) lineup. For the time being, he’ll be one of four Irish listed as a forward alongside Njie, junior Tae Davis (a guard/wing who happens to be 6-foot-9) and freshman Garrett Sundra (a stretch four).
The Irish now have two transfer additions this offseason, with Konstantynovskyi joining graduate student guard Matt Allocco. After shooting 50.8 percent from the field, 42.7 percent from three-point range and 90.9 percent from the free throw line, Allocco committed to Notre Dame March 17.
Allocco and Konstantynovskyi will join a young group of core players in South Bend, headlined by Davis and sophomore guards Markus Burton and Braeden Shrewsberry.
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