Head basketball coach, Mike Rhoades, said today during a summer presser that his basketball program is “at the bottom” in terms of NIL funding when comparing his team to the average Big Ten team.
Rhoades continued, “No coach is ever going to say they have enough. Everybody wants more in this arms race. This and that. It is what it is. Whatever you’re given, you gotta try to do the best you can with it and make no excuses and figure it out. The situation we’re in is what we’re in and we got to find a way to make the best of it and go from there. What teams are doing in our league and what we’re doing is totally different, it is what it is, and just make the best of it. I’ve said it, I’m not making excuses, when your back’s up against the wall compared to what others are doing, no excuses, gotta figure it out.”
Pretty stunning statements said by a head coach who is going into his fourth year at the helm and who is trying to turn the Penn State’s men’s basketball program into a winner.
It’s also well-documented that ever since NIL has professionalized college sports that Penn State men’s basketball is always near the bottom once it comes to NIL funding in the Big Ten Conference.
What the Nittany Lions do have going for them is that they are an older, more mature and more experienced team this season.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Coach Rhoades said it himself today that he hopes this experience will help outweigh their lack of resources:
“Even though we’re very limited in a lot of resources we were trying to get some older guys, guys with experience and find a way to get them here and I think we did a good job of that with what we have. Some of these guys have played a lot of college basketball. They’re just taking a huge step to playing in the Big Ten but hopefully with maturity and guys having that experience under their belt that’s going to help us in all that. So that was a priority, I never want to be the youngest team in Power Four basketball ever again, and you just got to find ways to be creative the best you can.”
Penn State hoop fans are hoping that this intentional strategy of getting older, more mature with more experience will pay off especially once it comes to competing in one of the most competitive, lucrative conferences in America.
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