Penn State coach Micah Shrewsberry post-game press conference: Watch

Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry took questions from reporters following his team’s 58-57 loss to Michigan.

A game in which the Nittany Lions held an 11-point advantage with just 3:56 left to play in the first half, a scoring drought upended that trajectory. Falling to 9-11 for the season, with a 4-8 mark in Big Ten play, Shrewsberry struggled all night with his team’s lack of free throws.

Attacking the rim repeatedly, more than 36 minutes of game action elapsed before the Nittany Lions finally shot their first free throws.

After the game, Shrewsberry addressed that topic and more in his press conference, presented below.

Micah Shrewsberry post-game press conference video

What follows is a partial transcript from Shrewsberry’s postgame press conference.

Opening statement:

“I thought they came in here and won a dog fight. That’s kind of what it became in the second half. They made the plays when they needed to. We struggled to get them off the glass there in the second half and that hurt us.

“But I told our guys in the locker room, I apologized to them. I have to be better. I have to keep my composure and I gotta coach these guys. I didn’t help them tonight. And they kind of took my lead a little bit and played a little more frazzled than they needed to. I got to be better for them and I will be.

“I promise I will be for those guys because the way they’re fighting, what they’re doing, they deserve that. But I’m gonna fight for these dudes. I’m gonna fight for them. Nobody else is gonna fight for my team. I’m gonna a fight for them every single day of the week.”

On Penn State’s shooting drought:

“They played more zone. And then they do a good job of mixing man to zone in the same possession. So it kind of keeps you off guard and kind of slows you down. We tried to do more attacking in our man stuff. We tried a couple of different ways to attack it. And the shots that we got were a little bit different.

“Early on, we had some open threes that we just didn’t hit that were wide open. They mess up sometimes too. But I felt like we got good shots. We were attacking the rim. We we’re getting all the way to the rim, getting shots right there. We just got to make them. We just gotta make them or we got to draw fouls and get to the free throw line a little bit more.”

On officiating concerns:

“I’m just gonna fight for our guys. It is what it is. If we’re driving, we’re attacking the rim. If we weren’t aggressive and if we didn’t shoot free throws, then so be it. But I thought we were attacking. And when you’re the aggressive team, usually that capitalizes for you, but it didn’t. So you gotta move on.

“One thing is, we got to be better. We still got opportunities, and we got to capitalize on those opportunities. I need to be better for our guys and give us better shots down the stretch and do what we need to do to get the win.

“I got four kids. They’re all in high school right now. So they probably all want to go to college. They’re all going to need to go to college. If I say what I want to say, their college fund is taking a hit.”

On considering changing Penn State offensive approach due to officiating:

“I don’t think so. You’re always trying to get… it’s a good shot, right? How many times this year do you watch Sam drive in there and get that shot up on the glass and it goes in. It’s still a good shot.

“We run offense to try and get layups, try and get open threes, force people to help. They weren’t really helping, because they were allowing that drive to get to the basket. So that’s something we can work on a different way to kind of counter and keep going. Dribble it underneath the baskets if you bring it out and get the switch. But there were a couple of times when we got switches and we didn’t attack it the right way.

“Again, that’s on me. I need to be better and help these guys be better and get better shots in terms of when we get the mismatch that we want, we have to capitalize on it. But I still like us attacking the rim. If you continue to do that, if you attack the rim every single time you can and be the more aggressive team, most times it works out for you.”