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Penn State Men’s Basketball: Shrewsberry Happy with Team Leadership

Penn State men’s basketball welcomes eight new faces to campus this summer while also keeping a core of players that helped the Nittany Lions to a solid opening season under second-year head coach Micah Shrewsberry. There are functional challenges that come with a roster that is experiencing so much change, but there are also emotional challenges as well.

For example, chemistry and leadership. You have those two things and it can make up for a lot of what you might not have. Now if you’ve got talent, leadership and skill? That’s how special teams are born.

The good news so far for Penn State fans? That chemistry — which wasn’t always there for new players last season — is already being forged in the heat of July.

“The first time the freshmen stepped on campus and the transfers as well, we’ve been competing extremely hard against each other and it’s different,” senior forward Seth Lundy said on Tuesday. “You can feel it in the room. Everybody feels the energy and there’s a competitiveness between each other. We always like competing with each other even on our days off. Guys want to go and play one-on-one against each other or you know, it’s gonna make us better.”

That’s something that Shrewsberry — who looks to mesh a collection of new faces, both transfer players and true freshmen, into an already solid core of Seth Lundy, Myles Dread, Jalen Pickett and rising star Dallion Johnson — wants to hear. If your veterans are opening their arms to new players on the roster, that can go a long way towards winning, a fact especially important in the absence of such a strong leader like former Nittany Lion big man John Harrar. That open-armed approach is something that one program source indicated wasn’t always there last season for some players.

“It’s hard for freshmen,” Shrewsberry said Tuesday prior to a team workout “I’m just throwing a lot of stuff at them. I don’t do a lot of explaining all the time. I still expect you to kind of know it, so their heads are spinning. But they’re doing a great job. The one thing about them, if you see them, they’re probably in a group of five walking around here together. They’re experiencing everything about Penn State, about Penn State basketball, together. So they’re helping each other kind of learn their way through it.”

“Jalen Pickett has really taken on a huge role with leading these guys,” Shrewsberry added. “Same with Myles Dread. They’re more vocal in who they are and how they’re talking, how they’re communicating, letting those guys understand ‘this is how you do things.’”

There’s a lot left for this team to do before it can start talking about anything special. For example, Shrewsberry says that they haven’t even worked on defense yet. But all the same, good vibes are good vibes, and there’s value in cultivating that as much as anything that happens on the court. Take care of your locker room and the rest can often take care of itself in those difficult moments.

The good news again? It’s a lot easier to spend time together when half the team doesn’t have COVID.

“You know, last year we got hit with COVID a little bit,” Shrewsberry added. “The whole team wasn’t here the entire time during our eight weeks [in the summer.] We didn’t get to do as much stuff together. So we’re making that a little more of an effort where we’re spending a lot more time with each other. We’re doing a lot more things off the court together. So I think that’s helping our camaraderie as a team I think it’s helping us be closer when we’re going through tough things together. And hopefully that helps us pays off for us when we get into some close games in the winter.”