Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1462941
A P R I L 2 0 2 2 4 5 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M "It feels great," Sessoms said after the win. "I said it yesterday, I love playing with this group of guys. I wanted to get one more opportunity. We made it to the second day last year, lost on a last-second decision made by me, so I'm just happy to make it to Friday along with this group of guys, because we really deserve it. [The] coaching staff put in a lot of time and ef- fort making sure we knew everything, and we just tried to execute. So, I'm just happy for everybody on the team." When Purdue ended the run the next night, the Nittany Lions concluded their season at 14-17 overall. Including the three postseason conference tour- nament games, Shrewsberry finished his first year with a 9-14 mark against Big Ten opposition. Penn State missed out on the NIT field and declined to play in a third- tier postseason tournament like the CBI after Shrewsberry sounded a skeptical note over the benefits for the Nittany Lions of doing so, pointing to the expe- rience on his roster. "This team is a little different than other teams," he said. "Some of those tournaments, you play in them if you want to get experience for a reason, right? Things like that. You've got a bunch of younger dudes [who are think- ing], 'Hey, we've got a chance next [sea- son] to be really good, let's keep playing. "Our team is a little different. We're not really in [that] boat." The Nittany Lions will lose four players who have exhausted their eligi- bility: star center John Harrar, forwards Greg Lee and Jalanni White, and guard Jaheam Cornwall. In addition, Sessoms has entered the transfer portal. His fel- low senior guard Myles Dread has the option to return for one more season but had not yet announced his inten- tion as of March 18. Crucially, Pickett revealed immedi- ately following the Purdue loss that he will return for his fifth season of eligi- bility. Having transferred in from Siena over the offseason, he is the engine that makes the Nittany Lions' offense run. Pickett finished the season averaging 13.3 points, 4.4 assists and 4.3 rebounds per game. He played his best basket- ball at the end of the season, shooting 62.5 percent and averaging 18 points per game at the Big Ten Tournament. The Nittany Lions will look to him to lead what they hope will be an offen- sive revolution this summer. Penn State finished the 2021-22 season with the worst offensive ef- ficiency in the Big Ten according to Ken Pomeroy's advanced metrics. The 64.6 points the Nittany Lions averaged per game were certainly influenced by the slow place Shrewsberry enforced in Year 1, but regardless, that average placed Penn State last in the Big Ten in total offense by a comfortable margin. After allowing the fewest points in the conference this season, Penn State's mission is now to build on a foundation of excellent defense. "We've got five guys who have signed with us who we're excited about, our class that's coming," Shrewsberry said following the Purdue defeat. "We've got some decisions that will be made by some older guys, but we've got an opportunity to have a bunch of the guys who were playing back again next year. So, we'll continue to work defensively, get better in that area and figure out how to score a few more points." ■ Micah Shrewsberry Makes Strong Debut At PSU Penn State has never been known as a hoops hotbed, so it might be surprising to learn that its first nine coaches began their careers with winning seasons. It bears mentioning, of course, that none of those coaches were facing Big Ten competition night in and night out. But the first Penn State coach who did face a Big Ten slate in his inaugural season at the school — Jerry Dunn — enjoyed a winning season, too, going 21-7 overall and 12-6 in league play and leading the Nittany Lions to a rare NCAA Tournament berth in 1996. Dunn's four successors have all had losing seasons in their first year at Penn State, but of the three full-time coaches on that list (Jim Ferry was an interim hire in 2020-21), Micah Shrewsberry enjoyed the most successful debut. Only seven times in 30 Big Ten seasons have the Lions won more than the seven regular-season conference games they won in 2021-22, and they tacked on two more victories in early March at the Big Ten Tournament. — Matt Herb Penn State's First-Year Men's Basketball Coaches NAME SEASON RECORD CONF. PLACE J.F. Haddow 1912-13 8-3 — — J.F. Park 1914-15 10-3 — — Dutch Hermann 1915-16 8-3 — — Hugo Bezdek 1918-19 11-1 — — Earl Leslie 1932-33 7-4 — — John Lawther 1936-37 10-7 6-4* 3 rd Elmer Gross 1949-50 13-10 — — John Egli 1954-55 18-10 — — Johnny Bach 1968-69 13-9 — — Dick Harter 1979-80 12-18 4-6** 6 th Bruce Parkhill 1983-84 5-22 3-15# 10 th Jerry Dunn 1995-96 21-7 12-6^ T-2 nd Ed DeChellis 2003-04 9-19 3-13^ T-10 th Patrick Chambers 2011-12 12-20 4-14^ T-11 th Jim Ferry 2020-21 11-14 7-12^ T-10 th Micah Shrewsberry 2021-22 14-17 7-13^ T-10 th * Eastern Intercollegiate Conference ** Eastern Athletic Association # Atlantic 10 ^ Big Ten