Penn State Basketball

Penn State has hired Purdue assistant Micah Shrewsberry as its next head men's basketball coach.

The Nittany Lions confirmed the hire in a release, making him the full-time replacement for Pat Chambers. 

Chambers resigned amid an internal investigation into his conduct before the 2020-21 season and was replaced by Jim Ferry on an interim basis.

The Lions went 11-14 in Ferry's lone season at the helm.

Jeff Goodman of Stadium first reported Shrewsberry's hiring. 

"I'm extremely humbled and excited to be the next head coach at Penn State University," Shrewsberry said in the release. "I want to thank Dr. Barron, Sandy Barbour, Lynn Holleran and the rest of the search committee involved in this process. The values of this university and its commitment to excellence are the major reasons why this job was so appealing to me. 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!"

Shrewsberry, 44, has been the lead assistant on Matt Painter's bench for the last two seasons. He's been instrumental in guiding the fourth-seeded Boilermakers offense this season, with Purdue ranking 23rd nationally in Ken Pomeroy's offensive efficiency metric.

Prior to his most recent stint at Purdue, Shrewsberry served as an assistant under Brad Stevens with the Boston Celtics from 2013 to 2019. Shrewsberry played an important developmental role for Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, and Tatum credited the shooting coach with helping him build a bond with his young costar.

"When I first got here, first two years, we had the same shooting coach, Shrewsberry, so we always kind of shot together," Tatum said, per Brian Robb of MassLive. "And we just always in the gym, always working, always trying to get better, just trying to push each other. A lot of one on one games a lot of shooting drills. Just came kinda natural.”

Shrewsberry previously served as an assistant under Stevens at Butler from 2008 to 2011 before his first stint at Purdue (2011 to 2013). 

The veteran assistant's first run at being a head coach will be anything but easy. Penn State's men's basketball program has long been greatly overshadowed by its football team, a fact that's hurt the Lions in recruitment and in internal support at the university. 

The Lions have not reached the NCAA tournament in a decade—they would have qualified in 2019-20 if the COVID-19 pandemic had not wiped out the Big Dance—and have reached the second weekend just once in the past 60 years.

There's no question Shrewsberry faces an uphill battle. However, with a deep coaching pedigree that includes success at the NBA and collegiate level, he's the type of hire who would help spark a turnaround in State College. 

Penn State basketball coach Pat Chambers stepped down after nine seasons with the Nittany Lions, the school announced Wednesday. 

Chambers joined Penn State in the 2011-12 season and amassed a 148-150 record in Happy Valley. 

Chambers was investigated for comments he made to former player Rasir Bolton.

Bolton said he decided to leave Penn State after Chambers referenced "a noose around my neck" in a meeting between them. https://t.co/mFmgRTMKuC

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) October 21, 2020

Assistant coach Jim Ferry will lead the team on an interim basis.

While Chambers' run as the head coach at Penn State—which followed two seasons at Boston University—was largely unremarkable, with the team never finishing higher than sixth in the Big Ten Conference and making postseason tournaments just twice (the CBI quarterfinals in 2013-14 and an NIT win in 2017-18), his' legacy is marred by multiple inappropriate interactions with players. 

Penn State's integrity officer, Robert Boland, has been conducting an internal investigation of Chambers and interviewed former players and colleagues about the coach's treatment of them, according to PennLive's David Jones. The investigation was cited in the school's announcement of Chambers' resignation.

In January 2019, Chambers was suspended one game after he pushed then-freshman Myles Dread during a timeout in a loss to Michigan. Following the suspension, Chambers had a discussion with then-freshman Rasir Bolton about the pressure his player was under, telling him he wanted to "loosen the noose" around his neck. Bolton later left Penn State for Iowa State and posted a statement about the comment to Twitter in July, saying it was why he departed the program. 

https://twitter.com/rasir_9/status/1280141282623598594

Former Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Josh Reaves, who appeared in four games for the Dallas Mavericks this season, told PennLive's David Jones in July that Chambers' comment was "dehumanizing."

"It's not just an expression because you're still talking about a young African-American man, coached by a white man," Reaves said. "History isn't too kind to stuff like that. Especially being African-American and hearing something like that is...it just makes you feel like you're not worth anything."

Other players, including Lamar Stevens and Jamari Wheeler, spoke out in support of Chambers in July, per Jones.

Former Penn State basketball player Rasir Bolton, who transferred to Iowa State after his freshman season, detailed Nittany Lions coach Pat Chambers making a comment saying he wanted to "loosen the noose around [his] neck" in 2019.

"A 'noose' around my neck is why I left Penn State. Head coach Patrick Chambers, the day after his one-game suspension in January 2019, in talking to me referenced a 'noose' around my neck," Bolton wrote in a statement on Twitter. "A noose; symbolic of lynching defined as one of the most powerful symbols directed at African-Americans invoking the history of lynching, slavery and racial terrorism. Due to other interactions with Coach, I knew this was no slip of the tongue."

https://twitter.com/rasir_9/status/1280141282623598594

Chambers, whose job security was in jeopardy after shoving Lions guard Myles Dread, used the phrasing in a meeting with Bolton he hoped would help the struggling freshman. 

"I want to be a stress reliever for you. You can talk to me about anything. I need to get some of this pressure off you. I want to loosen the noose that's around your neck," Chambers told Bolton, per The Undefeated's Jesse Washington.

Bolton said he immediately reported the comment to Chambers' superiors and confronted the coach about his phrasing. That led to meetings between Chambers, the athletic department and Bolton's parents. Bolton said he was provided just one in-person meeting. According to Bolton and his parents, Chambers did not apologize. Chambers says he did apologize.

Bolton accused Chambers of bad-mouthing him to his teammates after their meeting. 

"Coach Chambers never apologized, he said he was 'from the north and wasn't aware,'" Bolton wrote in his statement. "Subtle repercussions followed. Some teammates were told I couldn't be trusted and I was told the team didn't trust me. I wasn't 'all in' and 'loyal.' Because I stood up for myself? During my final player-coach meeting in April 2019, Coach Chambers told me he was 'really impressed with how well spoken and organized my parents were.' Yet another subtle insult."

Chambers apologized last week in an interview with Washington, saying he "didn't realize that word would hurt him."

The coach posted an additional statement of apology on Twitter, calling his words "hurtful, insensitive and unacceptable." 

pic.twitter.com/u743IUXsOL

— Patrick Chambers (@Coach_Chambers) July 6, 2020

Jamari Wheeler and Lamar Stevens each posted on Twitter in support of their coach:

The love coach got for me and this team is Deeper than black and white 🖤🤍 #WEARE #UnfinishedBusiness pic.twitter.com/bLxJADz3ZO

— Jamari Wheeler (@Jamariwheeler5) July 6, 2020

100%. He used a poor choice of words but Coach Chambers is a a great man who made a mistake. His actions towards all of his current and past players speaks much more volume. Ask them... https://t.co/5GmbxTiTPC

— Lamar Stevens (@LamarStevens11) July 6, 2020

"I don't even know where it came from,” Chambers told Washington. "It's not a word that's in my vocabulary. It's not something I use often. There's not a moment that goes by that I don't want to reflect on that choice and, you know, I'm growing from it.”

Bolton, who was Penn State's second-leading scorer as a freshman, transferred to Iowa State and was granted an immediate waiver after informing the NCAA of Chambers' comments. Penn State did not require Chambers undergo any diversity or sensitivity training for the comment. 

Bolton said he felt compelled to come forward after seeing Chambers was invited to speak on racial injustice at a webinar hosted by the National Association of Basketball Coaches. While Chambers was apologetic for his comment, he pushed back on the notion that he is "out of touch" with the Black community.

"If I was out of touch with the African American community, I'm not sure they would have been as successful as they were ... we might not be saving lives, but I think we're changing lives," Chambers said. "And I think we're making a major impact in our program, in inner-city communities."

Chambers is heading into his 10th season as Penn State's men's basketball coach. The Lions are 148-150 in that timeframe.

Bolton averaged 14.7 points and 3.4 rebounds for Iowa State last season.  

It's unfathomable that Pat Chambers still has a job.

That's not because he's an incompetent coach, an insufferable individual or in any way bad for Penn State's men's basketball program.

It's simply because nobody gets this long to make the NCAA tournament for the first time at a major-conference program.

If you're lucky, and if you inherited a mess of a roster situation, maybe you get three tournament-free years before landing on the hot seat and five years before you get run out of town. That has been the formula at DePaul, Rutgers and Washington State, each of which has an active tournament drought of at least a decade and no head coaches who made it into a sixth season during that seemingly endless dry spell.

Boston College has cracked the mold by retaining Jim Christian for a sixth year, but type his name or "college basketball hot seat" into your preferred search engine and see what comes up. Barring some miraculous turnaround from an 8-6 start to this season, the Eagles will likely hit the reset button with a different coach in 2020-21.

But this is Chambers' ninth season in Happy Valley, and he has yet to don a pair of dancing shoes.

There's an argument to be made that the Nittany Lions deserved to make the tourney two years ago when they went 3-0 against a solid Ohio State team and entered Selection Sunday ranked 29th on KenPom.com. Either way, we're talking about one time in eight years with at least 19 wins or with a non-losing record in Big Ten play.

Before this season, Chambers had a record of 127-140 with Penn State.

It hasn't exactly been a successful near-decade for the Nittany Lions, and it's almost unprecedented that they didn't make a coaching change.

And that's what makes this 11-2 start so poetically perfect. A coach who "isn't supposed to" be there anymore is leading Penn State to one of the best seasons in program history.

I understand Pat Chambers hasn’t gone to NCAA tourney. But not sure who they could hire at Penn State that would. Solid decision to bring Chambers back. https://t.co/MRsviKyZvV

— Jeff Goodman (@GoodmanHoops) March 15, 2019

There's still quite a ways to go before we consider them a possible Elite Eight- or Final Four-caliber squad, but the Nittany Lions are No. 21 in the AP poll. When they broke into the Top 25 on Dec. 16, it was the first time they cracked the poll since they ended the 1995-96 campaign at No. 18—and that season was the first time they were ranked since December 1954.

According to the New Year's Day Bracket Matrix update, Penn State is projected for a No. 5 seed in the 2020 NCAA tournament. That would match the program's high-water mark of the No. 5 seed it received in 1996, and it would be just its fifth trip to the Big Dance in the past 55 years.

Penn State fans are accustomed to success in football and wrestling, but these are uncharted waters on the hardwood.

It just so happens that I've done a lot of radio hits in the Penn State market throughout Chambers' tenure, and it's been fun over the past few weeks to chat with the local sports talk hosts who have lived through many awful seasons of basketball and are feeling like some combination of Ricky Bobby not knowing what to do with his hands and Charlie Brown waiting for Lucy to pull the football away.

This team feels like the real deal, though, as the Nittany Lions have been building toward this moment for years.

The biggest reason vice president for intercollegiate athletics Sandy Barbour stuck with Chambers this long—aside from the unanswerable "Who could we get that's better?"—has been his ability to recruit the Philadelphia market, and that increase in talent is finally paying dividends in the form of wins.

Before Chambers, the idea that Penn State could put together a top-50 recruiting class seemed impossible. But the Nittany Lions ranked 41st in 2015, led by Josh Reaves and Philadelphia-area big man Mike Watkins. The latter is now a fifth-year senior who's averaging 11.2 points, 9.4 rebounds and a near-best-in-the-nation 3.5 blocks per game. The former graduated last year, but his defensive intensity and leadership changed the way this team approached the game, which persists even though he's gone.

Chambers took it one step further with the 26th-ranked class in 2016. Three of the four players in that class were teammates at Roman Catholic in Philadelphia, and the fourth, Joe Hampton, was a former teammate of Reaves' at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia.

It's hardly a mystery that they improved drastically in the span of two years and won the 2018 NIT, given the amount of skill and cohesion baked into those sophomore and junior classes.

After that postseason run, they lost four of their seven leading scorers, while a fifth (Watkins) missed early action and never quite looked like himself. As a result, they sputtered to a 14-18 record last year, but the advanced metrics suggested they were a lot better than that.

With a healthy Watkins and with the lone remaining member of the 2016 class, Lamar Stevens, blossoming into a legitimate Big Ten Player of the Year candidate, Chambers and Co. have something special brewing.

Penn State already has blowout wins over Georgetown, Syracuse and Wake Forest. It also has a statement win over then-AP No. 4 Maryland and an almost equally impressive victory over Alabama in which it persevered through early foul trouble and a significant deficit on a rough shooting night to grind out the type of "bad-game win" that even great teams need from time to time.

It only took the Nittany Lions 11 contests to get five wins over major-conference opponents. Even during the NIT championship season, they didn't get that fifth victory until game No. 22 in late January. They only had one such nonconference victory in each of the past two years, and they haven't had three in a single regular season—let alone four—in any year since before they joined the Big Ten in 1992-93. It's possible it never happened before this year.

And even in the first of its two losses, Penn State led Ole Miss by 21 in the second half before going polar-vortex cold from the field for the final 16 minutes and losing by two.

This team is outstanding on defense, it's playing faster and more fluid than ever and it is making buckets with regularity for a change—What a novel concept!—shooting better than 50 percent from inside the arc (54.7 percent, in fact) for the first time in more than two decades.

Saturday's game against No. 23 Iowa (in Philadelphia) should be Penn State's first legitimate test since it became a ranked team. But given how much difficulty the Hawkeyes often have on the defensive end, this may well just be another case of the Nittany Lions emphatically showing that you need to take them seriously.

                                      

Recruit rankings courtesy of 247 Sports.

Kerry Miller covers men's college basketball and college football for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.

Penn State men's basketball head coach Pat Chambers has been suspended for one game for pushing freshman guard Myles Dread during a timeout in the Nittany Lions' 68-55 loss at No. 2 Michigan on Thursday.

Chambers, who has coached Penn State since 2011, will sit his team's Sunday home game against Wisconsin.

PSU Athletic Director Sandy Barbour released a statement on the matter (h/t Brian Hamilton of The Athletic):

Penn St. coach Pat Chambers suspended a game for pushing a player. pic.twitter.com/e6Eyud8qkM

— Brian Hamilton (@_Brian_Hamilton) January 4, 2019

       

Chambers signed a four-year contract extension in May after PSU went 26-13 and won the NIT.

However, PSU is just 120-128 under Chambers and 39-90 in Big Ten play overall in his eight-plus seasons. This year's Nittany Lions are off to a rough 7-7 start, including an 0-3 Big Ten mark.

Last Monday (three days before the Michigan game), Barbour was asked about the school's commitment to Chambers in the midst of a tough season. Per Mark Wogenrichof the Allentown Morning Call, she said she is "fully committed to Pat and his leadership of our program."

The question is whether that sentiment stands given the incident and the team's current downward trajectory.

Chambers did an excellent job in leading PSU to 26 wins, but the push was clearly unacceptable.

David Jones of pennlive.com offered commentary on the topic:

"It wasn't just the physical contact of it, to me, although it surely will be to many who see it. It was the sheer inauthentic audacity of what the coach did in showing up a player. The unnecessary nature of it. The showboating, 'look-at-me-taking-charge' BS of it.

"And every part of it was revealing about who I think Patrick Chambers is and what Penn State basketball has become."

As Jones later noted, Chambers' job is rather difficult, as he coaches at a school obsessed with football and somewhat apathetic towards the basketball program.

However, the shove is the low point for an already disappointing season.