Micah Shrewsberry vows lessons to be learned after blowout loss
Penn State head coach Micah Shrewsberry immediately turned his attention toward the future.
His Nittany Lions, pounded 81-56 Monday night at UMass, had just been beaten in every phase of the game. And in his first away game in his Penn State tenure, Shrewsberry was determined to make sure the program uses the experience to its benefit.
“It’s all a learning experience. Early in the year, these games are hard,” Shrewsberry said. “Winning is hard at any level, but for a new team, this is something we have to use this as a learning experience. If we don’t come out playing with our hair on fire on Thursday, then this game is for naught.”
From the jump, Penn State found itself in a rock fight in Amherst.
Trading buckets, the two teams played to a 22-22 lock at the 6 minute mark in the first half. But a quick 8-0 run for UMass at the end of the first half, offset somewhat by a 5-0 run of the Nittany Lions’, set the tone for what would come the rest of the way.
An up-and-down rollercoaster ending the first half went the other way to start the second. Beginning with a Noah Fernandes jumper at the 18:54 mark, the Minutemen ripped off a 13-2 run. Former Penn State forward Trent Buttrick did most of the damage with eight of the 13 points.
Disappointed by the turn, Shrewsberry pointed toward consistency and the need to learn from the experience moving forward.
“We can’t be an up and down team,” he said. “That’s something where we got to grow as a team. Our leaders got to be better in terms of, when we start this second half, now it’s possession by possession in what we do.
“It’s still a learning process. We’re still going to get better. Games like this are going to make us better. Sometimes you gotta sit through a game like this to learn.”
The Minutemen made 48.1 percent of their shots, including a 44.8 clip from beyond-the-arc with 13 makes. Penn State struggled to find its footing offensively, making just 19 field goals on 37.3 percent shooting, including a 4-of-15 rate from deep (26.7 percent). The Lions found themselves behind a UMass lead that ballooned to as many as 25 points in the second half.
Crediting UMass with a strong performance, particularly in the wake of a 91-71 bludgeoning Friday night at Yale, Shrewsberry said the loss was his responsibility to better prepare the players.
Maybe more troubling, his Penn State team did not match the tone, toughness, or quickness of UMass.
“I didn’t think we brought it at the energy level we needed to guard these guys,” he said. “That’s on me because these guys got beat by 20 in their last game. If we don’t know that they’re going to come out with a little bit more fire, that’s on me to have these guys better prepared and better able to function.
“We’ll watch this, we’ll get on the court, we’ll practice two days. And, we’ll be ready to play this next game. I guarantee you that.”
