Update: 6:45 p.m.
It’s now official: Micah Shrewsberry is Penn State’s new basketball coach, with the school making the announcement this evening.
Give a warm 🔵&⚪️ welcome to Micah Shrewsberry, our new Men’s Basketball Head Coach!
📰: https://t.co/NOjSKjw8qa#WeAre pic.twitter.com/zBYhX0GFtP
— Penn State Men’s Basketball (@PennStateMBB) March 15, 2021
I’m excited to be a part of Nittany Nation! #WeAre pic.twitter.com/kfq8p6YdDT
— Micah Shrewsberry (@Coach_Shrews) March 15, 2021
“I’m extremely humbled and excited to be the next head coach at Penn State University,” Shrewsberry in the university release. “I want to thank Dr. Barron, Sandy Barbour, Lynn Holleran and the rest of the search committee involved in this process. The values of this university and its commitment to excellence are the major reasons why this job was so appealing to me. I can’t wait to arrive on campus to begin working with our tremendous student-athletes. My family and I are looking forward to becoming a part of the Nittany Lion family!”
This is a good interview with Shrewsberry here:
"I wanted to be a part of someplace that really wants to be excellent."
Mitch Gerber goes one-on-one with new Men's Basketball Head Coach Micah Shrewsberry! ⤵️
🎥: https://t.co/nqvEJDIRrJ#WeAre pic.twitter.com/DNJU1TDg5r
— Penn State Men’s Basketball (@PennStateMBB) March 16, 2021
Shrewsberry will remain with Purdue during the NCAA Tournament, according to a report by the Centre Daily Times, rather than leave and take over at Penn State right away.
PSU AD Sandy Barbour had this to say about Shrewsberry in the release:
“Micah was a name that immediately jumped to the top of our list with his experience in the Big Ten and the NBA,” said Barbour. “He has had success at all levels and knows what it takes to develop a program into a consistent national contender. He has learned from and worked under some of the most respected coaches in the country in Brad Stevens and Matt Painter. Micah will be an exceptional leader for the young men in our basketball program and I can’t wait for him to get to know our student-athletes. We know he will be a great addition to our Penn State family!”
This is the first huge hire Barbour has made in her Penn State tenure. She inherited James Franklin as football coach, Cael Sanderson as wrestling coach and Russ Rose as women’s volleyball coach, along with Erica Dambach as women’s soccer coach. Those are the school’s most successful athletic programs.
Barbour did fire women’s basketball coach Coquese Washington and hired Carolyn Kieger last year. But that hire is not on par with selecting a men’s basketball coach, so in many ways, Shrewsberry will be a big part of Barbour’s legacy at Penn State.
Barbour gives a lot of good insight about the hire and about interim coach Jim Ferry in this interview.
Sandy Barbour joins Mitch Gerber to provide insight on the process of tabbing Micah Shrewsberry as Head Coach, his values, and more! ⤵️#WeAre pic.twitter.com/5hEbJR1tfA
— Penn State Men’s Basketball (@PennStateMBB) March 16, 2021
And finally, PSU President Eric Barron said this:
“Micah is an outstanding coach, with a breadth of experience, who will do great things for our program,” said Penn State President Eric Barron. “He is respected nationally as an outstanding talent, and brings an unwavering commitment to the academic success and overall wellbeing of our student-athletes. I am pleased he will be joining the Penn State family and look forward to the program’s development under his leadership.
ORIGINAL STORY
It became clearer and clearer the past two days that Micah Shrewsberry was in line to be Penn State’s next basketball coach, and that news has been confirmed this morning by some national reporters.
BREAKING: Penn State is expected to hire Purdue assistant Micah Shrewsberry as its head coach, sources told @stadium. Shrewsberry was previously an assistant for Brad Stevens with the Boston Celtics and at Butler.
— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 15, 2021
Confirmed @GoodmanHoops report that Micah Shrewsberry will be the next head coach at @PennStateMBB. Terrific hire.
— Dana O'Neil😷 (@DanaONeilWriter) March 15, 2021
GIGER COLUMN: Why Micah Shrewsberry is right fit for PSU
We have written extensively about Shrewsberry in recent days.
Here is Giger’s story from last week pointing out why he would hire Shrewsberry. This is the initial story we wrote in January listing him as a great candidate.
From our latest story:
Given all the candidates that Penn State can afford for around $1 million a year, would actually hire and would be thrilled to get the job, Shrewsberry checks almost every single box.
Almost.
The only box he doesn’t check is that he’s never been a Division I head coach. He was head coach at NAIA Indiana-South Bend from 2005-07, but that won’t help him a ton in this search.
What helps the most, to me, with regards to Shrewsberry is his significant NBA experience. That makes him a better candidate, in my opinion, than the person I’m going to discuss below as the coach who I believe ultimately will get the PSU job.
Shrewsberry was Brad Stevens’ assistant at Butler from 2008-11, helping the team get to back-to-back national championship games his final two years. I’m 47 years old and love college basketball, and I can honestly say that Butler coming out of absolutely nowhere to reach two straight national title games is the single biggest surprise I’ve seen in the sport during my lifetime.
Stevens left Butler in 2013 to become head coach of the Boston Celtics. Shrewsberry had departed Butler two years earlier for Purdue to serve as an assistant on Matt Painter’s staff. When Stevens got the NBA job in 2013, he hired Shrewsberry to be an assistant with the Celtics, and he stayed there for six years.
Shrewsberry returned to the college game in 2019 with Painter at Purdue and is the program’s offensive coordinator. He’s also the program’s associate head coach. He knows the Big Ten and what it takes to win in the league, which would be extremely helpful at PSU.
The 44-year-old not only has excellent experience as a college assistant with Butler and Purdue, like I said earlier, he also has the incredibly valuable six years of experience in the NBA with the Celtics.
I believe that is something he can really sell to recruits, all of whom want to get to the NBA and would see Shrewsberry as someone who knows what it will take to help them get there.
The wealth of combined knowledge Shrewsberry has gained being in major college programs and with one of the NBA’s greatest franchises would make him a fantastic choice for the Nittany Lions.
If I'm picking Penn State's next basketball coach, I'm choosing this guy.
I explain the MANY reasons why here:https://t.co/mYVeOmX2pm pic.twitter.com/CVPw1K6rJg— Cory Giger (@CoryGiger) March 15, 2021
And how about this tidbit. With James Franklin as head football coach and Shrewsberry as men’s basketball coach, Penn State now holds this distinction below:
Made a comprehensive list of every Power Five conference school with Black head football and men's basketball coaches: pic.twitter.com/irwpyvR2x8
— Farmer Jones (@thefarmerjones) March 15, 2021
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