How Penn State men’s basketball can build off its first season under Micah Shrewsberry
When the Penn State men’s basketball season came to a close March 11 in Indianapolis during the Big Ten Tournament, head coach Micah Shrewsberry had a plan in place.
He was not going to dig into the current players in the transfer portal, or plan for next season or even finalize who would be coming back for his team next year.
Instead he was getting his favorite drink and relaxing.
“I just wanna go back to the hotel, crack open a Dr. Pepper, take my shoes off, chill for a little bit,” Shrewsberry said with a smile. “This season has been a grind, man. ... When we get home tomorrow, I’m gonna put my pajamas on with the feet in them. I’m gonna lay on the couch and I’m gonna watch these games.”
Shrewsberry added that he would “decompress for a little bit then I’m gonna move on to what’s next.”
Four days passed between the end of the season and his season recap press conference Tuesday afternoon, but the Nittany Lion leader already had moved beyond his Dr. Pepper and footy pajamas and onto what was coming next.
Shrewsberry laid the groundwork for his tenure as the head coach at Penn State this season and will have a chance to build off it next season as he tries to break the program’s 11-year stretch without an NCAA Tournament appearance.
First that means finding out who will even be on his team next year. The program has five incoming freshmen as part of its 2022 recruiting class — the highest rated in program history — but will have to re-recruit many of the players already on the roster. The nature of college basketball and the transfer portal means teams around the country will have to convince their players not to leave for greener pastures.
The two primary focuses on that front for Penn State are seniors Myles Dread and Sam Sessoms. Dread and Sessoms both have an extra year of eligibility thanks to the bonus year granted by the NCAA for all athletes participating in the 2020-2021 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shrewsberry didn’t have an answer for either player’s plans just yet.
“Everybody needs a minute to kinda get away from each other, I think,” Shrewsberry said Tuesday afternoon. “At the end of the year, you spend so much time with each other every day. From the start of the summer, then you get a couple weeks off, then the start of the fall. So we’ll get together and have more in-depth meetings with everything, in terms of what those guys wanna do with their futures. But we haven’t had those discussions yet.”
Once that gets settled, Penn State will have holes to plug of its own. Senior guard Jalen Pickett — arguably the team’s best player — already announced he’s coming back but there are still players leaving who need to be replaced. Senior center John Harrar is the most notable as the team’s leader off the court and best big man on it.
The program has two freshmen coming in at center in Kebba Njie and Demetrius Lilley but it would be a lot to ask to make a true freshman start in a league as physical as the Big Ten. The portal is the other option the Lions have to find a stopgap until those players are ready, and Shrewsberry said he could go that route.
“Hopefully this season, and into the future, you really (go to the portal) kind of need based,” he said. “Who we have and who we build around will always be the guys that we spend the majority of our time and efforts recruiting. We have five freshmen coming in that, we recruited those guys. I know everything about those guys. ... We want to do (the portal) on a need-based basis to fill spots that we may need. For next year’s team, we do want to add a couple older guys so we don’t have to lean on those freshmen to be primetime players right off the bat.”
The Penn State head coach went heavily in that direction for his first season, bringing in key contributors like Pickett and senior forward Greg Lee to help the roster. The pair helped create a baseline for the Nittany Lions under Shrewsberry. They set the tone, competing all season and staying the course under their new leader.
The result was not perfect. The team was bounced in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament and didn’t make a postseason appearance. But there are still plenty of positives to take, including the clear coaching advantage the Nittany Lions have against plenty of teams in the Big Ten.
Of course, that coaching still needs talent. Shrewsberry will have a chance this offseason to add even more of it and show this season was the foundation for much more.
