It looks like Penn State has hired its next head men’s basketball coach, and Mike Rhoades is the guy.
On Monday, Dave Jones of Penn Live and the Harrisburg Patriot News wrote in an article that Penn State had offered Rhoades.
Earlier Tuesday night, college basketball insider Jon Rothstein reported that Penn State had offered Rhoades the job.
Hours later, Dick Weiss, a Hall of Fame sportswriter who’s covered college basketball for “8,000 years”, per his Twitter bio, tweeted that Rhoades to Penn State was “done.”
it's done. Mike Rhoades to Penn State. Nice guy from central Pennsylvania whose VCU team played fun style, made tournament. Will be starting from scratch in the B1G. Rooting for him.
— Dick Weiss (@HoopsWeiss) March 29, 2023
If this is indeed the case, Rhoades will be the 16th head men’s basketball coach in Penn State history and 17th counting Jim Ferry, who coached the team in 2020-21 on an interim basis.
The last man who had the job was Micah Shrewsberry, who took the Notre Dame job last week after two seasons in Happy Valley.
Rhoades, 50, has been at VCU since 2017, taking over after Will Wade moved on to coach at LSU.
He’s 129-60 overall through six seasons and 72-32 in Atlantic 10 play.
Rhoades has been to the NCAA Tournament thrice but has yet to get out of the Round of 64. This past season, Rhoades and the Rams finished 27-7 and won the A-10 regular-season and tournament championships.
VCU was a No. 12 seed in this year’s tournament and fell to fifth-seeded St. Mary’s in the Round of 64.
Rhoades assisted Shaka Smart at VCU from 2009-14 before becoming Rice’s headman. In three seasons, Rhoades finished with a losing record but made progress by the time he left. In his first two seasons, the team went 12-20. In his last one, Rice went 23-12 and made it to the CBI quarterfinal.
Mike Rhoades has ties to the Penn State area. A native of Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, roughly two hours from State College, Rhoades played college basketball at Lebanon Valley, where he graduated in 1995. Rhoades began his college coaching career at DIII Randolph-Macon in Ashland, Virginia. He assisted there from 1996 to ’99 and became the head coach after that. In 10 seasons, Rhoades went 197-76 and made it to the NCAA Tournament four times, twice making the Sweet 16. His overall record as a college head coach is 373-188.
Penn State is coming off one of the best seasons in program history, highlighted by its first NCAA Tournament and Big Ten Championship Game appearances since 2011 and climaxing with the team’s first NCAA Tournament win since 2001. But with three players already entering the transfer portal and two of Penn State’s three signees requesting to be released from their letters of intent, Rhoades will have plenty of work to do to get the team set for this season.
