Notre Dame Basketball: SF J.R. Konieczny, Class of 2021, Commits to the Irish

Mike Brey and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish basketball program haven’t had a lot of positive recruiting moments since the signing of that vaunted class of 2018 (Nate Laszewski, Prentiss Hubb, Robby Carmody, Dane Goodwin, Chris Doherty), but they finally received some solid news Sunday with the commitment of 2021 wing prospect J.R. Konieczny.

Konieczny is a 6’6” small forward from South Bend (St. Joseph’s), and has officially chosen to stay home and play for his local squad after also considering offers from the Butler Bulldogs, Creighton Bluejays, Iowa Hawkeyes, and Valparaiso Crusaders.

He is a 3-star player on both 247sports.com and Rivals, considered the 7th-best player in the state of Indiana in the class of 2021 and 129th in the country by 247sports.

With good length and what appears to be a nice stroke from long range, Konieczny definitely looks like the kind of player who can really excel in Brey’s offense, and he should be able to spend his freshman year learning from the likes of upperclassmen at the wing positions like Cormac Ryan and Robby Carmody and Dane Goodwin before stepping in as a key contributor in 2022-2023.

Hopefully this helps the Irish pick up some momentum on the recruiting trail, or at least helps the coaches really focus on landing some bigger, more highly-ranked targets now that they have a talented hometown kid locked in for 2021. This is a nice get for Mike Brey, but I think we can all agree he needs to kick it into high gear on the recruiting trail after all the whiffs he and his staff have had with their targets in the past couple recruiting cycles.