After loss, Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry refocuses mindset

Micah Shrewsberry was admittedly unsure of the timeline for his first season with the Penn State men’s basketball program.

Arriving with the Nittany Lions last spring, the former assistant with Matt Painter at Purdue, and Brad Stevens at both Butler and with the NBA’s Boston Celtics, Shrewsberry understood how the trajectory should look. Returning a mix of starters and heavy contributors with veteran newcomers into the program through the transfer portal, progress wasn’t in question.

Fifteen games into his tenure, that timeline has crystallized.

Now 3-4 against Big Ten opponents with an 8-7 overall record, their resume includes wins against Indiana and Rutgers. Combined with a road win at Northwestern, the Nittany Lions are undeniably improved.

“I think we’re constantly growing. I think we’re constantly getting better,” Shrewsberry said Monday. “I’ve always thought this team would take time. With a lot of new pieces, a lot of guys playing together for the first time. Everybody playing for me for the first time. So it’s a constant learning process and I thought we would get better as the season went on. 

“I think we’re still going to get better. I don’t think we’re a finished product yet.”

Shrewsberry and the Penn State program are counting on it. 

Beginning the season on a see-saw, topping Youngstown State before a blowout loss at UMass, followed by wins against St Francis Brooklyn and Cornell, the Nittany Lions’ back-and-forth hasn’t stopped since. Taking LSU to the wire in the Emerald Coast Classic on Thanksgiving weekend, but losing 68-63 in overtime, the Nittany Lions bounced back with a wire-to-wire win over Oregon State. 

Flipping into a December schedule abruptly ended by a COVID-19 hiatus, the program missing its final three games of the month, the Nittany Lions lost back-to-backs against Miami and Ohio State, topped Wagner, and lost at Michigan State before the shutdown.

Penn State’s next steps

The new year has taken on a different tone, though.

Returning to action after a 22-day layoff, Penn State has won three of its last five games this month. And how the Lions have done it, holding three opponents to 61-or-fewer points, and sustaining two losses by a combined 12 points, both to ranked opponents, has marked a turn toward consistent competitiveness in the Big Ten. 

Determined to not settle there, pushing Penn State instead to make the improvements necessary to convert close losses to wins, Shrewsberry said the next steps are critical.

“I don’t feel like we handled the little bit of success that we had very well. I didn’t think our discipline was great (at Ohio State),” Shrewsberry said, complaining of 25 personal fouls, up from a previous season-high of 19. “We don’t traditionally foul people and send people to the line. They shot 34 free throws. I think a huge part of that was because of us and how we played. 

“We prepared the right way. I thought we were pretty locked in defensively. We did good things offensively, better when I went back and watched it, from what I thought originally. But I don’t think we handled small pieces and parts of success. I don’t think we did that very well.”

Forced to postpone Wednesday evening’s game with Minnesota at the BJC due to a COVID-19 outbreak within the Gophers’ program, Penn State’s next opportunity to do so will come this weekend.

Traveling to Iowa on Saturday, Penn State will bring with it an approach Shrewsberry is working to instill. 

“I expect us to win every game. I expect us to play in the NCAA tournament. Win games. Stack games on top of each other. Go on winning streaks,” Shrewsberry said. “Don’t be happy with being close with somebody else and now we’ve arrived. We haven’t arrived. We haven’t done anything. We’re below .500 in this league. And until we get where we want to be, I’ll never be satisfied.”