Pat Garrity is a man with a plan on how to revamp Notre Dame’s basketball teams amid the ever-changing NIL landscape, with the former hooper leaning on the school’s prestige to lure talent
New Notre Dame basketball general manager Pat Garrity already has a key selling point to attract recruits despite the ongoing chaos surrounding NIL.
The changing landscape of NIL has forced college programs to change their approach to recruitment after multiple teams are reportedly set to spend upwards of $10 million in 2025. This has caused pressure on less fortunate college programs, including the Fighting Irish men’s basketball team, which hasn’t played in the college playoffs in any of the last three seasons.
Garrity, a former Irish player, has been appointed GM to help his former team in both men’s and women’s basketball navigate the impacting NIL changes. The 48-year-old has already highlighted one key selling point for potential future recruits. The basketball side of the Fighting Irish hopes to match the achievements of Marcus Freeman’s football side, which came runner-up in last season’s national championship to Ohio State.
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Garrity will focus on convincing prospects of the legacy they could leave at Notre Dame in favor of the riches on offer elsewhere. “I think the larger perspective that I have on it is there are a lot of student-athletes that are making good decisions for them, that they’re rewarded financially,” Garrity said.
“But they’re also gonna get through college connected to a place and being remembered at a place,” he added. “I think that we have to be able to demonstrate to our student-athletes that we can get you there, and that’s ultimately the important thing,” he continued.
However, Garrity has admitted that this summer is too early for him to deliver concrete thoughts on the NIL landscape. “This summer, I think, is maybe a bad example to develop any thoughts on it,” Garrity said.
“Because it was probably the most unregulated that it’ll ever be. You had kind of the ending of the collective era and everyone preparing for the revenue-sharing era.”
In contrast, the women’s team has played in the NCAA Tournament in each of the past four seasons, each time crashing out in the Sweet 16. Meanwhile, the football program has had a long and successful history with recruitment. It holds an annual “Pot of Gold Day,” where the Fighting Irish dishes out scholarships to football prospects in hopes of luring them to the school.
The St. Patrick’s Day special saw Freeman and the Fighting Irish offer scholarships to nearly 100 of the best prospects in the 2027 cycle. Recruitment is important, but Freeman is laser-focused on maintaining the Fighting Irish as a winning team.
“Yeah, we’ve often said the best recruiting we can do is keep winning,” Freeman said. “That’s the reality of it. This is going to be the best recruiting we can do because the lights are on our program, and that’s great for parents and high school recruits to see.”
Freeman is grateful for his recruiting staff at the football program. “But we also have a great recruiting department. Chad Bowden, who is our general manager, and his department has been on the road in high schools, getting transcripts, talking to coaches and figuring out the character of high school prospects,” he added.
“So we’re not sitting back and not being on the road recruiting. We’re just having other people in our program do it. We have two females which I think is great to put the spotlight on: Zaire Turner, she’s on the road recruiting, and Rebecca Sites. So two women that are in our recruiting department are actually on the road, recruiting in high schools.”
