Sunday Column: Boilers’ Early Exit Turns Shrew Loose to Lions, And Not a Moment Too Soon

It’s been a rough year for hoops fans in Bloomington. 

Indiana, which is currently without a head coach, is watching the NCAA Tournament from home for the fourth straight year (not counting the non-tournament 2020). Hoosier fans might have felt a bit of solace watching in-state rival Purdue get bounced out of the tournament by North Texas on Friday in overtime. 

Bet they weren’t nearly as happy about it as Penn State fans were, though.

The end of Purdue’s season officially marked the beginning of Micah Shrewsberry’s Penn State tenure, and he faces several short-term obstacles in what is arguably one of the nation’s toughest long-term challenges. Just about everyone in the Nittany Lions’ regular rotation hit the transfer portal last week, and though those departures most likely have a lot more to do with players’ feelings toward the administration rather than toward the new coach, it still leaves Shrewsberry with a ton of roster-building to do.

That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Though the 2020-21 Nittany Lions were a tough, scrappy bunch that played well together, there weren’t any indispensable players on this team, no one who was a true star or poised to be a true star. Asking Shrewsberry, or any coach, to fill out a full roster in seven months and still be competitive in a league like the Big Ten is unrealistic, but so too is expecting the bulk of the players to return. A new coach needs to have his own guys, those who fit both his style of play and his personality, and the sooner Shrewsberry can achieve that, the better.

Would it be easier if a couple of those players – say, Myles Dread and Izaiah Brockington? – decided to stick around, fill some minutes and help give Shrewsberry and his new staff the lay of the land? Of course it would, and not having to use the transfer portal to form the vast majority of next year’s team would make balancing the scholarships easier on a year-to-year basis and give the staff more opportunity to develop young players gradually.

It is likely, though, that Penn State will need the transfer portal regardless of how many Nittany Lions in the portal decide to return, and the clock is ticking.

One could argue that a deep run by the Boilermakers in the tournament would have been a nice feather in Shrewsberry’s cap, but even lead assistants typically don’t get much of the credit. Instead, Purdue’s quick exit means Shrewsberry can turn his attention to recruiting – both the 2021 class, which is unlikely to have many choice prospects remaining at this point – and future classes, while the nation’s top teams – though getting priceless national exposure simply by remaining in the tournament – will have to focus less on recruiting and more on finishing their seasons. He also has more time to try to convince the likes of Dread, Brockington, John Harrar, Seth Lundy, and Sam Sessoms to stay in State College, if he so chooses.

The more likely immediate options, as mentioned above, will come from the transfer portal, and Shrewsberry and yet-to-be-officially-announced assistant coach Adam Fisher are likely already doing due diligence on a group that includes more than 150 players and counting. Should Shrewsberry continue to fill out his coaching staff over the coming days, he will have more help to build his first Penn State team.

If history is any indication, Shrewsberry will get some time from the administration to put a winning team on the floor. And yet what he does in these first few weeks will be crucial. The fact that Penn State has a new coach should generate some interest on the recruiting trail and in the portal. The fact that he is getting public endorsements from the likes of Brad Stevens, Danny Ainge, Gordon Hayward, Isaiah Thomas and others adds a layer of prestige to the program not seen in quite some time, if ever.

Shrewsberry has coached in the NBA Playoffs and in two Final Fours, helped develop some of the world’s best players and recruited some of the Big Ten’s best current talent. His credentials and his reputation should be enough to get a foot in the door in places Penn State hasn’t been, but the time to get through those doors, and back through them with commitments in hand, is now. Penn State will still need to incrementally improve as a program once Shrewsberry settles in, and steadily add talent, but coaching changes are opportunities to make big jumps in momentum, and sometimes it only takes a player or two to light the spark.

Shrewsberry has built a reputation as a strong offensive playcaller. If he’s successful as a recruiter – both of players and assistants – during these first few weeks on the job, those plays, and his overall vision for the program, will be a lot easier to execute, and last week’s mass exodus will quickly become a memory.