Penn State, Micah Shrewsberry find model worth emulating in Tom Izzo

For Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry, prowling the same sideline as Michigan State’s Tom Izzo held meaning.

Facing off Tuesday night at the Bryce Jordan Center, it marked the second such occasion for Shrewsberry. But with the Nittany Lions emerging with a 62-58 win over the No. 19 Spartans, its finish was a decidedly more positive outcome for Shrewsberry and the Penn State men’s basketball program.

“I’ve been watching Big Ten basketball for a long, long time. There’s nobody that I have more respect for than Coach Izzo and his program. The standard-bearer for our league, based on all his accomplishments, what he’s done, consistently year in year out,” Shrewsberry said. “There’s almost times where you just look down there and I’m like, ‘Man, that’s Tom Izzo.’”

For as decorated as Izzo’s career has been, a more instructive storyline emerged for Shrewsberry and the Nittany Lions, however. 

A winning formula for Penn State

Speaking to the media separately from each other, the surefire Hall of Famer and first-year Penn State head coach offered cooperative perspectives on college basketball. 

For Shrewsberry, the changing landscape of the game due to the transfer portal and immediate eligibility hasn’t shifted his vision of how his Penn State program should be built. And in Izzo and Michigan State, a tenured head coach who relies on veteran players who have worked their way through the system, Shrewsberry and the Nittany Lions have a blueprint for which to aspire.  

“It’s an honor for me to coach against Tom Izzo. He gives a model for how we build our program and what we do,” Shrewsberry said. “How his teams get better and better and better as the year goes on. And they stay consistent. Guys get better, and guys wait their turn, and they come in and they’re a good player. It goes on and on and on, and it runs itself. That’s who we want to be. Hopefully, we’re building that way for the future.”

While Shrewsberry was unable to inherit exactly that type of team, needing to draw from the transfer portal in his first offseason with the program, elements already exist on the Nittany Lions’ roster.

One of them, super senior John Harrar, even proved to be the differentiating factor in Penn State’s win.

Penn State’s model of success

Pouring in 16 points (7 of 12 from the floor) with 16 rebounds in 30 minutes of action, including a crucial and-one bucket in the final minute, the big man also served as a blueprint for Izzo. Though disappointed, Izzo pointed to Harrar’s collegiate career and impact as something to be admired and copied.

“I’m proud he’s a Big Ten player. Look at our league, he’s the kind of guy that you want to represent your league,” Izzo said, citing Harrar as the game’s difference. “He’s done something that is illegal now (because) he’s gone through the process. He’s done a nice job of that, he’s gotten better every year, and he doesn’t complain about what he’s doing. Just keeps getting stronger, better, and tonight he was the hero.”

Sharing a similar sentiment regarding Penn State’s team this season, Izzo had high praise for Shrewsberry moving forward.

Despite losing six of its previous seven games, Penn State, with Shrewsberry at the helm, was a program nearing actualization.

“I told him I was proud of him. I said that you’ve been in them; you could’ve won about four games and good coaches just keep on banging and that’s what he did,” Izzo said. “He’ll be the right coach for this place. I thought he did a helluva job of getting his kids up night after night after night. He’s had 20 of these games, it seems like. Every time I look at the film, it’s a three-point game, two-point game, one-point game and they lose at the buzzer. This time, they won it.”