Micah Shrewsberry explains leaving Seth Lundy in despite shooting issues

Penn State senior Seth Lundy had the worst shooting day of his career on Sunday night against Rutgers. He came into the game as one of the Big Ten’s leading 3-point shooters by percentage but missed all 11 tries from deep against the Scarlet Knights and finished just 1-16 on the day in a narrow home loss to a conference foe the Nittany Lions are battling alongside on the bubble.

To add more salt to the wound, Lundy even had a chance to tie it up with a 3 on the final play, but was stripped by Cam Spencer before he could even get the shot off.

He wasn’t the only issue. Penn State as a team blew a 19-point second half lead at home in a game that could have solidified their NCAA Tournament chances. Instead, their star shooter went 1-16 while the Nittany Lions didn’t score a single field goal in the final nine minutes in front of a home crowd that never left their feet. Brutal stuff for those fans.

But, in this trying time, head coach Micah Shrewsberry came out and defended Lundy. Even though he couldn’t buy a bucket vs. Rutgers, Shrewsberry is still willing to go down with the ship and give Lundy the green light when he’s open.

“He’s leading the Big Ten in 3-point percentage. I might trust him, you know,” said the Penn State coach in the postgame. “The shot’s not falling but, you know, maybe there is the one that goes in. Like, that’s what we’re gonna lean on. He’s a guy… he’s carried us. He’s been consistent all season and he’s carried us. I’m gonna ride those guys, I’m gonna go with him until the wheels fall off.”

Against the Rutgers, the wheels fell off and then the whole wagon came apart.

“And tonight wasn’t his night, tonight wasn’t his night. But they were also like kick out threes. It wasn’t like I was just running set after set for him…like ‘hey man, we’re gonna get Seth the ball, we’re gonna do this and that.’ Nope. They were doubling, the ball was just getting swung to him, kept finding him, he just kept missing it. I’m okay with that. He was he was taking good shots for the most part.”

Seth Lundy, who came into that game a 44.4% shooter from deep, just happened to go 0-11. Make any one of those and the outcome certainly could have been different against the Scarlet Knights. Micah Shrewsberry says he’ll take those odds every time. Have to think a big bounce-back is in the cards for Lundy next time out.