What one former college head coach thinks Notre Dame is getting in Micah Shrewsberry
Jamion Christian followed from afar as Micah Shrewsberry built an NCAA Tournament team at Penn State around a player he originally signed. Christian, a Division I head coach from 2012-22, saw enough to think Notre Dame nailed its hire of Shrewsberry earlier this month.
Christian recruited Nittany Lions All-American guard Jalen Pickett to Siena in 2018. Pickett, then a freshman, helped Siena go 11-7 in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference in Christian’s one season there. He was an immediate star with a high-major future if he wanted it. He averaged 15.8 points, 6.7 assists, 4.6 rebounds and 2.0 steals per game as a freshman, highlighted by a 46-point, 13-assist outing in a triple overtime loss to Quinnipiac.
George Washington hired Christian after that season, but Pickett stayed two more before taking that high-major plunge. He chose Penn State, which had tabbed Shrewsberry just weeks earlier. Two years later, Shrewsberry and Pickett were the lead actors in Penn State’s first tournament appearance since 2011 – a run that helped land Shrewsberry the Notre Dame job.
“They’re getting a tremendous tactician on the floor,” Christian said in an interview with VSiN. “The way he was able to manage the game at Penn State, playing around Jalen Pickett, using (Andrew) Funk and the opportunity to shoot the ball from the outside, he was really like a magician. All year long, he stayed ahead of the competition, ahead of those teams in the Big Ten.”
Penn State went 23-14 and earned a No. 10 seed. The Nittany Lions beat No. 7 seed Texas A&M 76-59 in the first round, propelled by 13 3-pointers. They were No. 13 in offensive efficiency, per KenPom, and finished ninth in 3-point accuracy (38.7 percent). Only nine teams took a higher percentage of their shots from 3-point range than Penn State. Just six had a lower turnover rate.
Pickett was the puppeteer, averaging 17.7 points, 6.6 assists and 7.4 rebounds per game on 50.8 percent shooting (38.1 percent on 3s). Everything revolved around him. Shrewsberry constructed the roster to complement him, adding high-end shooters Funk and guard Cam Wynter from the transfer portal. Each shot above 40 percent from 3-point range – as did wing Seth Lundy – in part because the attention Pickett commanded from defenses generated open shots for them.
Pickett was also the answer to Penn State’s lack of a reliable forward. He was its post-up threat, armed with a consistent turnaround jumper from the mid-post and an ability to defeat double-teams.
It all sold Christian on Shrewsberry as a coach. And Christian sees him as much more than an out-of-nowhere wonder who helped a team catch fire late.
“They’re getting a head coach who’s up and coming, but also has a ton of experience,” Christian said. “So many times, when you’re a new name in college sports, the NFL or NBA, it means you usually have a lack of experience. They’re getting a coach with a ton of experience – college experience, NBA experience and now great head-coaching experience. Being able to have someone moving in the right direction who also has experience, it’s really hard to come by. Notre Dame is getting that.”
Shrewsberry spent the 15 seasons before Penn State hired him working as an assistant for Matt Painter and Brad Stevens. The latter hired him to his staff at Butler in 2007. Shrewsberry stayed there before jumping to Purdue in 2011 to work for Painter. He jumped to the NBA when the Boston Celtics hired Stevens in 2013 and stayed there until 2019, when he returned to Painter’s staff.
Shrewsberry and Christian never worked together. But through Pickett or others, Christian feels he has a firm grasp of how Shrewsberry operates and why players at each stop have respected him, including Celtics stars Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum.
“He’s a great manager of the locker room and the people in that locker room keeping them confident,” Christian said. “He always had a feel for what the team needed the most and did a great job all season long of keeping them confident, building them up and allowing them to play their very best when it mattered most down the stretch.”
