5 potential candidates worth monitoring in Penn State’s search for a head basketball coach
Penn State athletic director Sandy Barbour said in late January that she planned to have the new leader of the men’s basketball program in place by the end of the season.
Now, with only the Big Ten Tournament and any potential postseason berth between the Nittany Lions and the close of the 2020-21 campaign, Barbour’s planned timeline is nearing a conclusion.
The 2021-22 team should have its head coach in place soon, nearly five months after former head coach Pat Chambers resigned in October following an internal investigation.
Let’s take a look — in alphabetical order — at five candidates the program should look at for the position.
Jim Ferry, Penn State interim head coach
Ferry is the obvious internal candidate, given his time as the interim head coach this season, but it’s hard to envision him earning the full-time position. The Nittany Lions enter the Big Ten Tournament at 10-13 overall and 7-12 in the conference with a few questionable in-game coaching decisions foretelling the team’s downfall in a few of its losses.
This season isn’t Ferry’s first as a Division I head coach — he has 15 years of experience combined at Long Island University and Duquesne, where he went a combined 210-246 — but this was his first season coaching at the high-major level. His resume is solid, but doesn’t quite stack up to other potential candidates. While he deserves credit for holding the team together through the turmoil it endured after Chambers’ resignation, it’s unlikely that it’s enough to land him the job.
Dennis Gates, Cleveland State head coach
Gates is the head man at Cleveland State and currently has his team in excellent position in the Horizon League in his second season at the helm. He’s 29-28 overall in two seasons with the Vikings and 23-15 in the conference. Those records might not inspire confidence at first glance, but he took over a team that had only won 20 Horizon League games in the four seasons before his arrival.
His accomplishments at Cleveland State have earned him the Horizon League Coach of the Year award in both the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons. His success as a head coach is matched by his experience as an assistant coach. He spent eight years learning under Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton as an assistant with the Seminoles from 2011-19. Gates would be a good hire for a Penn State team looking to potentially rebuild on the fly after this season, as he has shown he can turn a program around quickly.
James Jones, Yale head coach
Jones presents an experienced option for the Nittany Lions, having spent over two decades in his current post. The Yale head coach has amassed 21 seasons with the Bulldogs, after he was hired 22 years ago after two seasons as an assistant at Ohio.
He’s tallied a 333-280 record in that time with a 180-114 mark in the Ivy League. Jones has built the program to find success of late, earning at least 19 wins in eight of the Bulldogs’ last 10 seasons. He’s made the NCAA Tournament in two of the last four seasons in which it was held and was in position to do the same last season before the postseason was canceled. The 57-year-old didn’t coach this season after the Ivy League canceled winter sports due to the pandemic, but could earn the job as a coach who knows how to build a program.
Mark Schmidt, St. Bonaventure head coach
Schmidt — like Jones — presents an experienced option and program builder for Barbour to consider. He’s found plenty of success at one of the most difficult jobs in the Atlantic 10 with St. Bonaventure and has been there for 14 seasons. The 58-year-old Schmidt won only eight games in his first season but has won at least 14 games every year since, including at least 18 wins in every full season since 2013-14.
The Bonnies have finished at the top of the A10 twice in the last six years, including this season with a 13-4 overall record and 11-4 in conference play. Schmidt is 239-184 at St. Bonaventure with two NCAA Tournament berths. He’s spent enough time with the program that it will likely take the perfect job to pry him away from the Bonnies, and it remains to be seen if Penn State would be that job.
Micah Shrewsberry, Purdue associate head coach
Shrewsberry is one of the more fascinating names on the list for Penn State. He has no Division I head coaching experience and has only been in college basketball for two of the past eight years, but those six years away may be an even bigger boost to his case for the job.
The 44-year-old coached under then-Butler head coach Brad Stevens from 2008-11 when the Bulldogs made two National Championship Game appearances. He then left for Purdue where he spent two seasons as an assistant under head coach Matt Painter before leaving to rejoin Stevens, this time with the Boston Celtics.
He spent six seasons working with players like Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum — both NBA all-stars this season — and helped the team make the Eastern Conference Finals in 2017 and 2018, before returning to Purdue prior to the 2019-20 season. Shrewsberry has been the offensive coordinator at Purdue, according to his profile on the Purdue website, while officially holding the role of associate head coach since his return. He’ doesn’t have the head coaching experience that other candidates do, but Shrewsberry presents the recruiting acumen and upside Barbour should be looking for to lead the men’s basketball program.
