Yahoo Autos Who could Penn State hire to replace Micah Shrewsberry? A look at 6 potential candidates
Penn State men’s basketball will have to find a new head coach after Micah Shrewsberry agreed to become the head coach at Notre Dame Wednesday.
The Nittany Lions will have to act quickly with an important offseason ahead. The roster will be subject to plenty of turnover and a new coach will need to fill nearly half the program’s scholarships, if not many more.
Let’s take a look at potential candidates for the opening.
Penn State associate head coach Adam Fisher
We’ll start with the two internal candidates first, beginning with the Penn State graduate. Fisher spent the last two seasons as the program’s associate head coach and as a key figure in the recruitment of some of its best players, including all-time great Nittany Lion Jalen Pickett. He spent six years as an assistant at Miami, but has never been a head coach before.
Taking a chance on Fisher would be a risk on some level because of his lack of experience. But he would provide stability and the ability to recruit the type of talent needed to make the NCAA Tournament consistently. That being said, it’s difficult to know how any coach would run a program if they haven’t done it before, although Fisher has learned from Shrewsberry, Miami head coach Jim Larrañaga and former Villanova head coach Jay Wright.
Penn State assistant coach Mike Farrelly
Farrelly would provide some of the same stability Fisher would from a continuity standpoint, but does not have the same ties to the program. However, he’s still from the northeast and has ties to the area that would benefit him when it comes to recruiting. A former St. Joseph’s point guard under Phil Martelli, Farrelly spent time coaching in New York, where he’s from.
He was on the staff at Hofstra for eight years, and was the associate head coach during the 2019-2020 season before becoming the acting head coach one year later. He then left for Penn State after Hofstra hired program legend Speedy Claxton over him despite Farrelly leading the program for a year. That one year may not seem like much, but having a full season to guide a program can make a difference.
