Meet Micah Shrewsberry, Penn State's New Men's Basketball Coach
Penn State has hired Micah Shrewsberry, the associate head coach at Purdue who has coached in the NBA and two Final Fours, as its new men's basketball coach. The compensation sub-committee of Penn State's Board of Trustees approved Shrewsberry's hiring Monday.
Shrewsberry, who helped Purdue earn a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, brings an extensive resume to Penn State for his first major-college head-coaching position. He spent six years in the NBA, coached in two NCAA national-championship games and built a program from scratch in his first head job.
Shrewsberry will take over for interim head coach Jim Ferry, who guided Penn State this season following the abrupt resignation of Pat Chambers last October.
"The values of this university and its commitment to excellence are the major reasons why this job was so appealing to me," Shrewsberry said in a statement. "I can’t wait to arrive on campus to begin working with our tremendous student-athletes. My family and I are looking forward to becoming a part of the Nittany Lion family."
So who is Micah Shrewsberry? Here's a primer on Penn State's new coach.
He is in his second season as associate head coach at Purdue, working alongside Matt Painter. This is Shrewsberry's second stint at Purdue. He also served as the team's offensive coordinator. Purdue faces North Texas in Friday's first round at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Prior to that, Shrewsberry spent six seasons as a Boston Celtics assistant. He worked with head coach Brad Stevens, helping the Celtics to the playoffs five times and to the NBA Eastern Conference semifinals twice.
He has a long history with Stevens, working with him for a decade at Butler and in Boston. Shrewsberry spent four years at Butler, three as an assistant coach.
Shrewsberry has coached in two NCAA tournament championships games, both with Butler in 2010 and 2011. He began his time at Butler as the coordinator of basketball operations.
“Micah was a name that immediately jumped to the top of our list with his experience in the Big Ten and the NBA,” Penn State Athletic Director Sandy Barbour said in a statement. "He has had success at all levels and knows what it takes to develop a program into a consistent national contender. He has learned from and worked under some of the most respected coaches in the country in Brad Stevens and Matt Painter. Micah will be an exceptional leader for the young men in our basketball program and I can’t wait for him to get to know our student-athletes."
Between stints with Stevens at Butler and in Boston, Shrewsberry spent two years as an assistant at Purdue. Boilermakers coach Matt Painter said Shrewsberry "has an outstanding basketball mind and is a very strong recruiter."
In 2005, Shrewsberry became the first full-time men's basketball coach at Indiana University South Bend. He essentially built the program, started a booster club and organized its first alumni game.
Shrewsberry is known for his creative offensive mind. Both Stevens and Painter have praised his skill for designing and running offenses At Purdue, Shrewsberry guided the 2019-20 team, which lost three starters, to a top-50 national rank in offensive efficiency. And in his last season in Boston, Shrewsberry coached an offense that ranked second in the NBA in 3-point percentage.
Shrewsberry considers himself a college coach. Similar to Penn State football coach James Franklin, who spent a year in the NFL, Shrewsberry said he values a particular component of college coaching.
"My personality is more geared toward the college side," Shrewsberry told The Athletic after returning to Purdue in 2019. "I’m a relationships guy. If you would ask anybody that’s run across me, I value relationships, continuing and maintaining and having those. That’s something you get in college. You recruit a guy from the time he’s 16 years old. You see them through college and then after college. Seeing the guys you’ve coached and seeing them come back and have their families and watch them grow from who they were in high school to men, it’s just a different deal than you get in the NBA."
Shrewsberry began his coaching career at the University of Indianapolis in 1999. He also was the director of basketball operations at Marshall from 2003-05.
Shrewsberry, 44, is an Indiana native who went to Hanover College and earned a master's in sports management from Indiana State.
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