Penn State Basketball: 12 candidates to replace Micah Shrewsberry as head coach

Matt Langel

Geography is not necessarily important with coaching hires, but getting a coach who knows how to recruit in Pennsylvania is certainly a good call for Penn State. This next name has done that at multiple stops in his career and has turned a disastrous mid-major program into a dominant force in the Patriot League.

Langel played his college ball at Penn and joined that staff a few years later, reunited with college coach Fran Dunphy. Langel followed Dunphy to Temple for five seasons before starting his own head coaching career at Colgate way back in 2011. After a slow start, Langel has taken this Raiders program to the next level the last five seasons, with appearances in the last four NCAA Tournaments and complete dominance of this program.

After solid work coaching and recruiting at both Penn and Temple, Langel could fit in nicely at a Penn State program again looking for a new identity. His work at Colgate shows that he can rebuild a program, even if it takes a considerable amount of time. Even if Penn State was interested, it’s very possible that Temple could snatch up Langel, as their head coaching job remains open at this time.