UNIVERSITY PARK– For coach Mike Rhoades, Penn State “deserves better” than what the basketball team is providing right now.
He’s right.
Any Penn State basketball fan would be right to wonder how much the team has progressed under Rhoades.
When Rhoades, who made it to three NCAA tournaments and five total postseason trips in seven seasons at VCU, took over at Penn State in March 2023, he knew the first year would be rough.
Yes, Micah Shrewsberry led Penn State to the NCAA Tournament in what ended up being his last season.
But the combination of running out of eligibility (Jalen Pickett), declaring for the Draft (Seth Lundy) and the transfer portal (Kebba Njie went with Shrewsberry to Notre Dame) left Penn State with almost none of its key players from the previous season. Yet with all that, Rhoades and Penn State went 16-17 overall and 9-11 in the Big Ten in Year 1.
Not anything anybody will write a book about, but not too shabby. P
Penn State won six of its last 11 Big Ten regular-season games, beat Michigan in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament and almost did the same to Indiana before a last-second shot ended Penn State’s season.
With four starters returning for 2024-25, it would have been reasonable to think Penn State would be better, maybe even make it back to the Tournament after a one-year hiatus.
It was even more reasonable to have those thoughts after Penn State started 12-2, highlighted by a double-digit win over perennial powerhouse Purdue.
Storm the Court: Penn State Basketball Dominates No. 8 Purdue For Signature Win
But the combination of failing to close out games (five of Penn State’s seven losses in January were by single digits), bad luck (veteran leaders Ace Baldwin and Puff Johnson have missed time due to injury) and just plain bad basketball (a 39-point loss at Illinois, a 19-point loss to a frankly ordinary Ohio State team at home) have led Penn State to where it is now: 3-8 in the Big Ten, which is 16th of 18 teams in the standings.
Penn State Basketball Suffers Worse Loss of the Season at No. 13 Illinois
Forget the NCAA Tournament for now. Penn State might not make the Big Ten Tournament at this rate.\
Penn State Basketball Suffers Worse Loss of the Season at No. 13 Illinois
‘I PUT MY NAME ON IT’
Rhoades tells it how it is.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.When his team beat Purdue, he sounded like a coach whose team just beat Purdue.
“Sweat with us!” he yelled euphorically into the microphone to a roaring Bryce Jordan Center crowd, many of whom had stormed the court.
https://Twiter.com/valladares7b/status/1864849307414778123?s=46
When Rhoades’ team lost by 19 at home, well, he sounded like a coach whose team just lost by 19 at home.
“That was a disappointing game of basketball for us,” Rhoades told reporters during his opening statement. “I put my name on it. I stamp it. Just not good enough.”
“When you try to build a program, you go through days like this and moments like we’ve gone through the last couple of weeks. We have to learn from it and get better.”
“We always talk about adversity,” center Yanic Konan Niederhauser said. “That’s where we are right now. The season is up and down. We just have to find a way back.”
For Rhoades, Penn State is experiencing the roller coaster that is college basketball.
“Seasons are like this. You have your moments where, individually, you’re playing well or you’re not playing well or as a team not shooting it well or you’re not guarding well. We’ve had too many moments here this month we’re close, but we’re… ‘man, I wish we had that turnover back’ or ‘if we executed this play,’ ‘we got hung up on a ball screen,’ whatever it may be. Just too many plays where we’ve done that at a high level but we didn’t do it in that moment and it hurt us.”
ONE YEAR LATER…
When Penn State basketball ended January last season, it was 4-6 in the Big Ten and, unlike the Ohio State game, ended the month on a high note with a 15-point upset win at Rutgers.
To put that into perspective, this Penn State team, which returned reigning Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Ace Baldwin and other key players such as Nick Kern and Zach Hicks and added talents like Niederhauser and Freddie Dilione V from the transfer portal and also doesn’t have the excuse of a first-year coaching staff, has a worse Big Ten record through a significant sample of games.
This isn’t good enough, and Rhoades knows it better than anybody.
“No,” Rhoades said when asked if he was pleased with the effort his team put in. “No. It has to be better. Your best response to adversity is to fight more and to fight harder and be more aggressive and run harder. There are no excuses. It’s not good enough. It’s not good enough for me and our coaching staff. It’s not good enough for players. Penn State deserves better. This is part of building a program. This is part of going through these tough times… when you have a lot of adversity, you find out who’s all in. You get frustrated. Just because you want to win really bad doesn’t mean you’re going to win. We’re going through a stretch right now where we’re not winning and we have to fight.”
Penn State’s next game is Tuesday, Feb. 4 against Minnesota on the Big Ten Network. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 at the Bryce Jordan Center.
