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Penn State Basketball Recruiting

Micah Shrewsberry Breaks Down 2023 Penn State MBB Signees

Photo by Penn State Athletics: Micah Shrewsberry

Here’s what Penn State basketball coach Micah Shrewsberry had to say about every member of the 2023 recruiting class on signing day.

MICAH ON 3-STAR SG AND SON, BRAEDEN SHREWSBERRY:

It’s actually a pretty cool moment. I’ve been around it, I’ve seen it, and I’ve done it, but now to be on the side of watching your own kid do something like this is pretty impressive. You miss a lot as a coach, right? You’re gone a lot. You miss a lot of games; you miss a lot of opportunities to be in the gym, whatever it may be. So there’s a lot of people… he has a big village of people, because, one, we’ve moved around a bunch. There’s a lot of people that have really helped him become a good player when I’m not around all the time.

Micah Shrewsberry made it clear that nepotism wasn’t a factor.

“I’m not in the business of handing out free scholarships,” he said. “He had to earn it. This wasn’t a gift. He had to earn it. And he earned it through his hard work. I don’t know if there’s anybody that’s taken more shots in the Bryce Jordan Center than him.”

ON CAREY BOOTH, THE SECOND-HIGHEST-RATED SIGNEE IN PSU HISTORY (TONY CARR NO. 1)

When I got the job here, I didn’t know (Penn State great and current Denver Nuggets GM) Calvin (Booth) had a son. (Calvin Booth) reached out about me being here at Penn State. About wanting to see our program do well, about wanting to get off to a great start and just offering his support. (Associate head coach Adam Fisher) probably knew he had a son, and we began our recruitment there. But it wasn’t… we didn’t recruit him because his dad played here. He didn’t come here because his dad played here. It’s its own separate entity, and that’s kind of the fun part of it. We recruited him, and we went after him. We get the benefit now of getting the chance to coach a guy who is nowhere near where his potential to end up is going to be. He’s a good player now, right? But we sat up here last year, and we signed Kebba (Njie). Kebba showed up, and he was a totally different person, right? He grew up before he even got here.

Shrewsberry pointed out that Booth is still only 17.

“He’s going to be 18 here when he’s in summer school classes—just starting his freshman year,” Shrewsberry said. “He’s not even done physically growing or developing. So you see the difference when you get kids like that, and he still has a ways to go. I think he’s going to be a good player for us.”

Shrewsberry doesn’t feel Booth has to be an instant star.

“Let’s be patient,” he said. “I hope he walks in the door, and he’s fantastic right away. That helps us all. And if he’s not, let’s be patient with him and let him grow because he’s still a young kid. But how he plays, the way he moves, how he blocks shots, how he can step out and shoot the ball on the perimeter, put the ball on the floor. His confidence is growing each and every day that he plays, and I think him being at Brewster (Academy) right now is helping, because he’s going against high, high-level guys every day in practice. They probably had eight or nine guys sign today just from his high school team. That’s his practices every single day. So where he is right now, Nov. 9 till where he is first day of classes in August, I can’t wait to see him then.”

ON 3-STAR SG LOGAN IMES

Logan comes from an athletic family as well. I think when you see that, and you talk about his dad (Former University of Wisconsin rower Matt Imes) and the athlete that he was and what he’s still doing in sports. There, you start to see the competitiveness come through.

Shrewsberry said in a statement on Penn State’s athletic site that Imes “has tremendous character and comes from a great family.”

“He is a very hard worker,” Shrewsberry said, “as evidenced by the rapid improvement he has made shooting the basketball over the past 12 months. I am very excited to add Logan to our program and have high hopes for the player he will be going forward.”

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