Shrewsberry Secures First Victory as Penn State Coach

Story posted November 11, 2021 in CommRadio, Sports by Austin Groft

Micah Shrewsberry is now 1-0 to start his head coaching career at Penn State.

Being selected to be Penn State’s 14th head basketball coach, Shrewsberry came in looking to make an immediate impact for Penn State basketball’s 126th season.

“I’m proud of what we did and I’m happy for our guys. Gritty not pretty – that’s who we want to be and I thought we were that tonight,” Shrewsberry said.

Entering his first NCAA division one head coaching position, Shrewsberry was looking forward to this moment, but at the same time was filled with nervousness.

“I couldn't sleep. So, I was up for a while. I'd sneak down in my basement and play some Galaga trying to break high scores down there until I could fall asleep,” said Shrewsberry.

Coming into this game Youngstown State had a past against Shrewsberry. The Butler Bulldogs used to be a member of the Horizons League before leaving to join the Atlantic 10 in 2012 and then the Big East shortly after.

Under Brad Stevens, Shrewsberry was a part of two national championship runs where the Bulldogs came up short in both games.

Back in the 2010-2011 championship run, Butler played and lost against Youngstown State in the regular season with a final score of 62-60.

Penn State played an all-around great defensive game holding the Penguins to shooting 39.3% from the field.

Shrewsberry has a team goal of only allowing 60 points per game and he was thrilled to hold Youngstown State to a mere 59 points.

“Those guys are just warriors, you could see it, we were wearing down. I ask a lot of them on the defensive end. I ask them to play extremely hard and when you get stops, I’m asking them to run the floor – doing all this stuff that takes a lot of effort,” Shrewsberry said.

The players were thrilled to be a part of the coach’s first win at Penn State and described the locker room as being filled with energy after the game. Junior forward Seth Lundy, who led the Nittany Lions in scoring with 23 points, was pumped for Shrewsberry.

“I will say it’s special. A lot of people didn’t believe in us when everything happened last year. When he first got the job and all the guys transferred, nobody thought we were going to be good. He said we’re all we got,” Lundy said.

After the game, the players celebrated with coach Shrewsberry by spraying water all over the locker room.

Penn State welcomed fans back into the Bryce Jordan Center for the first time in 617 days for a men’s basketball game. The hype around the team is real with 2,800 student season tickets being sold so far, the most in Penn State history.

“I want to thank the students and all the fans that came. There were times where we needed to dig in and get stops, and they helped us in that way,” Shrewsberry said.

Austin Groft is a third-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email atg5271@psu.edu