Penn State leaning on veterans as newcomer influx set to land

Micah Shrewsberry’s optimism is rooted in comfort. Entering his second season as Penn State men’s basketball’s head coach, his own is something to which he can personally attest.

His staff is intact, he has returning veteran players with whom he is familiar, and that continuity has allowed the program to settle in.

But, as Shrewsberry recently detailed, so too is his read on Penn State’s players. Led by Jalen Pickett, Seth Lundy, and Myles Dread, the Nittany Lions are counting on their collective comfort to create wide-ranging dividends.

“Having those three old guys as kind of your rocks. They’re so much more comfortable,” Shrewsberry said. “Hopefully they learned from John Harrar in terms of how you have to approach everything on a daily basis. Now, they get to take the leaders’ role.”

Penn State returning core

For Pickett, that opportunity is primed by a solid performance in his debut at Penn State.

Starting all 31 games after his transfer from Siena, Pickett led the Nittany Lions in scoring with 13.3 points per game and 413 points for the season. His 135 assists were also a team-high, as were his 35 steals. 

Said by Shrewsberry to have been “working hard” all offseason ahead of his fifth season of college basketball, Pickett’s leadership is a core tenet of Penn State’s aspirations this season.

The same is true of Lundy and Dread. While Dread continues his recovery from offseason shoulder surgery, he’ll return for a fifth bonus season as well. And Lundy, having started 30 games last year, will look to build on his 11.9 points and 4.9 rebounds in an evolving role. 

With Penn State’s veterans back on campus, including the additions of transfers Andrew Funk (Bucknell) and Cam Wynter (Drexel), they’re completing their first week of work ahead of the arrival of five true freshman newcomers this weekend. That group will include five Class of 2022 additions in the form of Jameel Brown, Kebba Njie, Evan Mahaffey, Kanye Clary, and Demetrius Lilley.

Next steps

Eager to meld the veteran core with the pieces expected to serve as complements, Shrewsberry said he’s excited to embark on the program’s summer work.

“I can’t wait. I think it’s fun to get eight weeks,” Shrewsberry said. “You know who you have, but you don’t know who you have until you get a chance to work with them. So we’re gonna spend the first few weeks just really getting to know them. 

“What do they do best? You watch these guys so much, but they’re not in the setting that you want them to be in. So we get to put them in different situations, see how they react, see what happens, put them on different teams, put them in different situations, and see what we can do from there. But I’m a basketball junkie. So, going a really long time without practicing, working out, and doing stuff on the court, that’s hard for me. So I’m itching to get back out there and put all these guys together. I’m excited about our group.”

Pitching the upcoming season as one of opportunity, Shrewsberry will turn to those veterans to set the tone. 

Confident that they can rise to the challenge, Shrewsberry has already seen evidence of that growth coming to fruition.

“I talked to them about that before they left. ‘You guys are carrying this mantle now. John’s gone. He’s is not leading this program anymore.’ And, it’s not my program. It’s yours,” Shrewsberry said. “So how do you want it to be? How do you want to leave your legacy here? 

“I think they’ve taken that to heart. They’ve worked really hard. I’m excited to see what they’ve done when they come back, see what they’ve done since they’ve been gone. And then see what next steps we can take together.”