At Big Ten Football Media Day in Chicago, PSU athletic director, Pat Kraft couldn’t escape being asked once again about his take on the funding of the Penn State men’s basketball program.
Kraft’s response comes fresh off the heels of him sitting down on The Nittany Dispatch last Friday where he was asked a similar question.
Kraft said the following statements: “Penn State basketball should win this year,” “We are investing at a level where Penn State basketball should compete to get into the NCAA tournament,” “Mike (Rhoades) has the money to be competitive in the Big Ten” and “Mike has the resources.”
It has been well-documented that Penn State this year is once again in the bottom half of revenue and NIL sharing when being compared to their Big Ten competition. Rhoades said it himself just last week, “We’re at the bottom.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.It was reported by Jon Sauber of the Centre Daily Times that the men’s budget has nearly doubled this year, which equates to nearly $8 million. The average Big Ten team is spending $14.3 million on their rosters this year according to Brendan Marks and CJ Moore of The Athletic. A $6 million dollar difference with just the average Big Ten team.
“And the highest paid rosters, everyone just assumes it equates to winning championships,” Kraft said in Chicago. “That’s not the truth. You got to have enough money to go compete, then you got to recruit and get the right student athletes, and you got to spend the money the right way, too. That’s another part of it. Now where we were in basketball last year, we went young. This thing flipped on its head. Mike’s done a great job recruiting, but if you notice rosters…they’re not young anymore that wins. So we got caught in a place where we were behind. I will not deny that. But where it is now and where we’re continuing to invest is different. And so we have to grow and build a program to compete. And I think where we are is where we believe is the best place we can be right now, and it’s evolved; it will change next year and the year after.
