Penn State basketball took Mike Rhoades from VCU, and Rams’ fans that are bitter about that will get to see their team take on the Nittany Lions down the road, per report.
Hours after Penn State officially announced that Rhoades would be coming to Happy Valley, college basketball insider Jon Rothstein tweeted that, per sources, Penn State and VCU will have a home-and-home series as part of Rhoades’s buyout with VCU.
Sources: As part of Mike Rhoades' buyout with VCU, Penn State will be required to begin a future home-and-home series with the Rams.
This has been a common practice when VCU has lost its head coaches to power conference programs.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 30, 2023
As Rothstein pointed out, this shouldn’t be a surprise.
VCU is known to do this whenever its coaches have moved on. After Rhoades’s predecessor, Will Wade, left for LSU in 2017, the teams played in the 2019-20 season, with VCU winning.
After Wade’s predecessor and Rhoades’s old boss, Shaka Smart, left for Texas, VCU and Texas played in the 2017-18 and 18-19 seasons, with Rhoades as VCU’s head coach. The team’s split the short series.
VCU and Alabama had a home-and-home after Smart’s predecessor, Anthony Grant, left for Tuscaloosa. The teams split games in November 2011 and December 2012, respectively.
There’s a chance PSU and VCU would have played next season regardless of Rhoades.
As Rothstein himself reported in December, PSU and VCU are two of the six programs that are part of the 2023 ESPN Invitational in Orlando, along with schools such as Butler, Iowa State, Virginia Tech and Texas A&M.
NEWS: The field for the 2023 ESPN Invitational in Orlando is nearly finalized, according to multiple sources.
Virginia Tech
Iowa State
Butler
Texas A&M
Penn State
VCU
Boise State
MAAC team that is currently TBDhttps://t.co/ea4lFmatW0— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) December 13, 2022
Penn State and VCU have met once before. That took place in the 2020-21 season, with Penn State, led by interim coach Jim Ferry, pulling out a 72-69 win. Seth Lundy, who played his last college game earlier this month, led Penn State with 32 points, the most he ever scored as a Nittany Lion.
