Micah Shrewsberry opens up on Penn State's improved free throw shooting

Penn State‘s free throwing shooting in its quarterfinal overtime win over Northwestern was poor but Micah Shrewsberry wasn’t worried. He believed his team would bounce back from its off night at the line.

That proved to be correct. The Nittany Lions shot 23 of 26 from the free throw line against Indiana as it upset the Hoosiers to make the Big Ten Championship Game.

Shrewsberry was asked if he talked to the team about their charity strip struggles.

“No, nothing,” Shrewsberry said. “We’re a really good free throw shooting team. The first couple games, they weren’t us, so I didn’t even mention it. I didn’t even talk about it. I just let these guys play.”

Penn State made 18 of 29 free throw attempts against the Wildcats on Friday for a mediocre 62.1%. But it wasn’t just that they missed 11 free throws but they missed a good amount of clutch free throws down the stretch.

While the Nittany Lions did miss all three of their free throws Saturday in the final minute of action, the team still made more than it missed to close out the game.

“They step up and make shots,” Shrewsberry said. “That’s what they do. They work on their games. They step up and make shots under pressure, no matter what happens. My college coach, Mike Beitzel, texted me last night and said don’t talk about it either. So I follow his orders at all times.”

Micah Shrewsberry explains emotions ahead of Penn State v. Purdue

Before being hired at Penn State, Micah Shrewsberry was the associate head coach at Purdue. He had two stints with the Boilermakers from 2011-2013 and 2019-2021. In between, he was an assistant coach for the Boston Celtics.

While Purdue has had the Nittany Lions’ number in recent memory, Shrewsberry said it is going to be a fun challenge to play against Boilermakers head coach Matt Painter

“It’s never fun because they beat our brains in every single time we’ve played them,” Shrewsberry said. “But like it’s the friendliest of rivalries that he’s a guy that I call and I talk to all the time, and despite us being in the same league, we’re talking about things throughout the year. We’re helping each other. He’s helping me.

“So I’m always indebted to him. I owe a lot of gratitude to him. He showed me, in my years there, how to run a college basketball program, how to do it the right way, how to recruit the kids that fit your system. So it’s fun. It will be a great challenge. We got to be ready. We got to be physical. We got to play good offense.”