Micah Shrewsberry explains if he took notice of news about Mike Brey's expected departure

Due to his connections with the state of Indiana, Micah Shrewsberry was a hot name when it came to Notre Dame’s potential replacement for Mike Brey. However, with what all was going on at Penn State down the stretch of last season, he swears that the news of Brey moving on from South Bend never crossed his mind.

Shrewsberry addressed that process with Jon Rothstein on ‘College Hoops Today’. He said that there was too much happening in the moment at the end of the season for the Nittany Lions for him to truly consider his future, especially at a different school.

“I mean a lot of it was really just focusing on the task at hand,” Shrewsberry said. “I owed a lot to our guys. They were doing everything that they could to try and get us to the NCAA Tournament. And that was my goal, that was our staff’s goal. And that was their goal as players to try and do that.”

“We didn’t have an easy road so we were locked in. I didn’t have time to worry about other teams in our league, let alone what was going on outside of the walls of the Bryce Jordan Center,” said Shrewsberry. “I was locked in on our guys. Trying to figure out what we needed to do to try and beat Northwestern, try and beat Maryland. (And) try and get to the NCAA Tournament.”

Penn State went 23-14 last season in Shrewsberry’s second season in University Park. The Nittany Lions appeared in the championship of the Big Ten Tournament in a loss to Purdue. They then made it to the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament as a No. 10 seed.

That success and spotlight made him an attractive option for coaching searches across the country. However, as an Indiana native who has a resume full of stops within the state, he was an obvious candidate for the Fighting Irish after Brey elected to move on after almost two and a half decades.

Shrewsberry’s focus didn’t ultimately matter as he still landed in South Bend anyways. Now, from here, his attention will go toward getting Notre Dame back into March Madness more frequently than Brey did over the last six seasons, much like it did with the Nittany Lions last year.

Shrewsberry says it’s still ‘surreal’ being at Notre Dame

At the end of March, former Penn State Nittany Lions head coach Micah Shrewsberry left Happy Valley and headed to South Bend, IN, to become the new head coach of the Notre Dame men’s basketball team. Fast forward to now, two months after his decision, and the whole thing is still surreal to Shrewsberry.

“Yeah, it really is. You know there’s days where I just kind of pinch myself. And I’m like, ‘Dang, I’m the head coach at Notre Dame’. And I’ve had a pretty fast rise up to this level. But it’s something that I’m really looking forward to. I’m really looking forward to representing Notre Dame the right way,” said Shrewsberry during a recent interview on College Hoops Today with Jon Rothstein.

It makes sense that Shrewsberry is still on cloud nine after taking over the reins of Notre Dame’s basketball program. The Fighting Irish head coach has some strong ties to Indiana, stemming back to his days as a youth.