On Sunday, Penn State head coach Mike Rhoades earned his 400th career win in an 86-66 victory over Penn.
While the final scoreboard displayed a 20-point win, these two teams were only separated by three points heading into halftime as the Quakers outscored the Nittany Lions 15-0 from behind the arc.
Overall, the 3-point disparity remained chasmic as Penn finished with a 33-12 advantage from deep. PSU was able to pull away in the second half as it regressed to the mean in the efficiency category (four 3s and 52.9 field goal percentage) and Penn continued to struggle overall (22-for-57 from the field), but this game seems to be part of a larger trend for Rhoades’ squad as they line it up from 3.
THE BROAD SIDE OF A BARN HASN’T BEEN BROAD ENOUGH FOR PSU BASKETBALL
That subheading might seem a little dramatic when you look at Penn State’s overall 3-point efficiency — 35.8 percent — but the Nittany Lions closed out 2024 shooting an abysmal 12-of-55 (22 percent) from downtown.
Penn State’s best volume shooter, Zach Hicks, has found himself in a major shooting slump, hitting only three of his last 16 attempts from deep.
Even with those struggles, the Nittany Lions won their last three nonconference games by an average of 26 points, albeit against lesser competition.
Rhoades desires to be “bold and different” from the rest of the Big Ten by playing with pace and creating offense from defense. But if Penn State’s shooting struggles continue, its defensive playmaking may bear fewer positive results against conference opponents who will stand by and watch the Nittany Lions miss their mark from 3.
THE MIKE RHOADES EFFECT
After Penn State defeated Purdue at the Bryce Jordan Center, Rhoades had a simple message to the fans:
“This is what we’re going to do!”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Mike Rhoades grabs the PA mic at the Bryce Jordan Center after Penn State’s win over Purdue: “This is what we’re gonna do!” pic.twitter.com/VqnXRHrs4m
— Daniel Gallen (@danieljtgallen) December 6, 2024
While PSU has gotten off to slow starts offensively in recent games, Rhoades has coached his players to find ways to stay competitive and fight.
The result won’t always be a win, but one thing is for certain, wherever Rhoades has gone, he has brought a winning culture to the program.
In his first season at the helm of State College, Rhoades won the second most Big Ten games by a first-year head coach in program history (9). He earned two AP top-15 wins in 2023-24, defeating No. 12 Illinois and No. 11 Wisconsin, the latter being the highest ranked win by a first year head coach in Penn State history.
Before Penn State, Rhoades spent six seasons at VCU, amassing a 129-60 record and leading the Rams to three NCAA tournament appearances and one Atlantic 10 Championship.
In 2014, Rhoades began one of three seasons as the head coach at Rice. In his final year with the Owls, he led the program to its first 20-win season in 13 years and second most victories (23) in program history. Before his time at Rice, he was an assistant at VCU and was a part of a Final Four run in 2011. And before that, he spent 10 years at the Division III Randolph-Macon in Ashland making four NCAA tournaments and winning six Old Dominion Athletic Conference championships.
So far this year, Penn State has a 10-1 nonconference record, marking only the fifth time the team has ended regular season nonconference play with one loss since 1992. Through the opening 13 games, the Nittany Lions have an 11-2 record — their best start in five years — and already have a ranked win.
Mike Rhoades has a laundry list of winning accomplishments in his 21 years of coaching, and this 2024-25 season seems to be on track with the rest of his career.
