Boston Celtics

Former Celtics assistant Micah Shrewsberry will reportedly be named head coach at Penn State

Shrewsberry served as an assistant coach under Brad Stevens with the Celtics and at Butler.

Micah Shrewsberry Celtics Penn State
Micah Shrewsberry coaches Jaylen Brown before Game 6 of the 2018 Eastern Conference Finals. Jim Davis/Globe Staff

By Khari Thompson

1 minute to read
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A former Boston Celtics assistant coach is getting his chance in the big chair at a major college program.

Penn State is expected to name longtime college basketball and NBA assistant Micah Shrewsberry its new head coach, according to Stadium’s basketball insider Jeff Goodman. Shrewsberry will take the reins after spending two seasons with Purdue as an assistant coach — his second stint with the Boilermakers.

Before that, he had spent six seasons with the Celtics under Brad Stevens, for whom he had previously worked when Stevens was the head coach at Butler.

Stevens even said in 2019 that Shrewsberry was one of the first people he asked to join his staff when he was hired as Boston’s head coach. “I’m super thankful Mike did, he made my life easier,” Stevens said.

Shrewsberry became one of Stevens’s top assistants and is credited with bringing major improvements to the Celtics’ defense during his tenure, with the unit even finishing with the NBA’s best defensive rating in 2018. He was also part of two of the Celtics’ last three Eastern Conference Finals appearances in 2017 and 2018.

But as he said when he left Boston in 2019, coaching college ball is his preference.

“I’m a relationships guy,” Shrewsberry told The Athletic then. “If you would ask anybody that’s run across me, I value relationships, continuing and maintaining and having those. That’s something you get in college.”

Shrewsberry takes over a Nittany Lions team that finished 11th in the Big Ten this season with a 7-12 record, coming over from a Purdue squad that just earned a fourth seed in the upcoming NCAA Tournament.

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