Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1420595
4 0 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 1 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M low-key and very down-to-earth. And then you would see me coach defense, and you would probably change your mind about all that. But that person comes back when we're playing of- fense, because I give our guys a lot of freedom on that end. I give them a couple of rules: don't turn the ball over and share the ball with each other. It's complex, because I don't give them a lot of rules offen- sively. It's a lot of reads and it's a lot of read-and-react basketball. How they adjust to that is going to [determine] how good we are right away. They're picking it up and we're playing slowly and we're doing it slowly. They're pick- ing it up great right now. But when we play against real defenses, how do we react? I'm putting them in different situ- ations right now offensively to try and grow and get better. And I think we'll continue to get better as the year goes on, which is what you should do. You shouldn't peak on Nov. 10. We shouldn't be at our best when we're playing Youngstown State. We need to be peaking in the Big Ten tournament and beyond. So that's what we're trying to do, and I think that's what these guys will do. On the other end, I'm a stickler and I'm a disciplinarian in terms of what we do defensively. We should have those rules down by the time we start. BWI: The concept of positionless basketball, it sounds like everybody needs to know what everybody else is doing offensively. What does that mean? SHREWSBERRY: Yeah, it is. You don't lean on one person to be the only one to make all your decisions. Every- body is doing the same thing. So when we're doing skill workouts, everybody does a lot of the same things, because I think it's really important for you to be able to dribble, pass and shoot. So we work on those skills. We've got guys like Jalen Pickett, who's averaged a lot of assists in his career, but the ball is in John Harrar's hands just as much as it is Jalen. John needs to be able to make decisions as well. So we put those guys in positions to do it in practice. We try to simulate game situations as much as possible, because I need everybody making decisions. I need everybody making the right pass, mak- ing the right play, keeping the ball moving, keeping the offense moving, which makes it hard for you to game plan, hard for you to stop when we're playing at an optimum level. BWI: Is the defensive approach five- as-one? SHREWSBERRY: You go back to the history of the Big Ten and you look at the teams that have won the Big Ten, and over time, all those teams have had a similar characteristic: They are half-court, gritty, tough, man-to- man defensive teams. And from Bob Knight to Gene Keady to Bo Ryan, Thad Matta, to Tom Izzo to Matt Painter, that's how those teams play. That's how you win in the Big Ten. And being in this league and coaching in this league, I've had a chance to do that. Now, we need to bring it in terms of what we do here. We teach a system, and everybody needs to know what that system is. Here's how we're going to guard certain things, here's what we're going to do in this situation, here's what we do in this situation. And then once you get that down, then you can start playing off instincts. We're not in the instincts phase yet. We're still in the learning and the development phase of teach- ing, and how we do it, and how we stay disciplined doing it, and how we ap- proach it every possession. Once we get to that, then they can start reading situations, playing off instincts. Then they'll start playing faster and they won't think anymore. 2 0 2 1 - 2 2 M E N ' S B A S K E T B A L L S C H E D U L E Date Opponent (TV) Time (ET) Nov. 10 Youngstown State (BTN) 8:30 p.m. Nov. 15 at Massachusetts TBA Nov. 18 St. Francis Brooklyn* TBA Nov. 22 Cornell (BTN)* 6:30 p.m. Nov. 26 LSU** 7 p.m. Nov. 27 Oregon State or Wake Forest** TBA Dec. 1 Miami (Fla.) (ESPN/ESPN2) TBA Dec. 5 Ohio State (BTN) 7:30 p.m. Dec. 8 Wagner TBA Dec. 11 at Michigan State (BTN) 2 p.m. Dec. 18 at VCU (NBCSN) 3:30 p.m. Dec. 22 Quinnipiac TBA Dec. 29 Delaware State TBA Jan. 2 Indiana (BTN) 4 p.m. Jan. 5 at Northwestern (BTN) 9 p.m. Jan. 8 Purdue (BTN) Noon Jan. 11 Rutgers (BTN) 6:30 p.m. Jan. 16 at Ohio State (BTN) TBA Jan. 19 Minnesota (BTN) 6:30 p.m. Jan. 22 at Iowa (BTN) TBA Jan. 26 at Indiana (BTN) 8:30 p.m. Jan. 31 Iowa (BTN) 7 p.m. Feb. 5 at Wisconsin (BTN) 6 p.m. Feb. 8 Michigan (ESPN/ESPN2) 9 p.m. Feb. 12 at Minnesota (BTN) 8:30 p.m. Feb. 15 Michigan State (BTN) 6:30 p.m. Feb. 21 at Maryland (ESPN/ESPN2) 7 p.m. Feb. 25 Northwestern (FS1) 7 p.m. Feb. 28 Nebraska (BTN) 7 p.m. March 3 at Illinois (FS1) 7 p.m. March 6 at Rutgers (BTN) Noon March 9-13 Big Ten Tournament (BTN/CBS) TBA * Emerald Coast Classic at Bryce Jordan Center ** Emerald Coast Classic at Niceville, Fla. "We're in the beginning stages. I've still got the training wheels on right now. There are a lot of things that I want to do defensively to really make it hard for people to score on us. But we have to get the basics in first. We're still doing that. We're still learning how to ride the bike with the training wheels on, and then hopefully as we go here, I can take the training wheels off and they can pedal freely on their own." S H R E W S B E R R Y