Notre Dame defensive back Mark Zackery made his college basketball debut on Saturday. He is so much smaller than the rest of his new teammates.
Despite his size, the 5-foot-11 freshman will be an important depth piece for the Fighting Irish.
Although his career may not last more than one season, the way this has all played out is one of the coolest stories in college basketball right now. Zackery is a two-sport athlete!
Who is Mark Zackery IV?
Zackery hails from Ben Davis High School in Indiana. He was ranked as the No. 21 player at his position in the recruiting Class of 2025 as a four-star cornerback and a top-200 player overall.
32 schools offered the Indianapolis-native a scholarship, including Alabama, Georgia, Oregon, Michigan, Iowa, Texas A&M, USC, Florida, Ohio State, Tennessee and Penn State, among others. Marcus Freeman and Notre Dame ultimately received his commitment last December.
The true freshman defensive back immediately worked his way onto the two-deep depth chart and recorded 10 total tackles (seven solo) with three pass deflections in 2025.
Doing play breakdown requests on the @ISDUpdate message board, which is always a very fun time, was asked about this Mark Zackery play, wanted to post it here to highlight this coverage, thought it showed a lot of positives. Check out the thread here. https://t.co/zpac2MpNkh pic.twitter.com/XjrHbTZt4y
— Greg Flammang (@greg2126) September 24, 2025
Zackery was also a standout on the hardwood at Ben Davis. The superstar point guard led his team to an undefeated 33-0 record and a state championship as a sophomore. He averaged 11.0 points, 2.1 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 1.4 steals per game as a junior to finish as the state runner-up.
Mark Zackery also played alongside current Irish hoopers Logan Imes and Braeden Shrewsberry on the Indiana Elite AAU team in 2024. It finished as the Adidas 3SSB 17U national runner-up.
Braeden Shrewsberry is the son of current Notre Dame basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry so the latter was very familiar with Zackery in high school. That got him thinking.
Notre Dame added its rising football star to the basketball team.
The Irish had plenty of depth at guard before an injury to junior guard Markus Burton. Burton will be out for an extended period of time. He might be out for the year. We’ll see.
Meanwhile, the Notre Dame football team was left out of the College Football Playoff and chose not to play in a bowl game. The season is now over, which freed up Mark Zackery’s winter schedule.
Shrewsberry went to Freeman with an idea. What if the four-star freshman cornerback joined the basketball team as a walk-on? He did not want to cause any problems so it was up to the football coach. And to the athlete himself, of course.
Freeman signed off on the agreement and went to Zackery with the idea. Zackery accepted.
It was officially announced on Thursday that he would join the basketball program!
Notre Dame lists its true freshman point guard at 5-foot-11, 175 pounds. That might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but either way, he is the shortest active player on the roster by at least five inches.
His new teammates make him look small. (Because he is!)
You can’t miss him on the bench.
Mark Zackery did not make his debut during a blowout win over Evansville on Saturday. He may not see the floor at any point this season. Who knows. Nevertheless, it is an awesome story.
A Notre Dame football player who could not play college basketball because of the postseason schedule walked on to the team after a full year away from the sport. How cool would it be if he becomes a breakout basketball star?!