This past January, Nittany Sports Now reported that the 2025-2026 Penn State men’s basketball team had the youngest Power Four Conference roster in America with an average team age of 18.85.
Coach Mike Rhoades said this past offseason, “I never want to be the youngest team in Power Four basketball ever again.”
Reflecting on a tough 12-20 season, Rhoades also noted that relying heavily on freshmen left them physically outmatched.
“We sort of pivoted on some of the decisions,” he said. “You’ve got to learn from some of the decisions you’ve made.”
Even though the Nittany Lions had the No. 26 ranked recruiting class in the country, teams were still getting older, bigger and more experienced around them with the explosion of NIL and the transfer portal that saw more than half of all Division 1 basketball players switching teams.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.This year, the new-look Nittany Lions have an average team age of 21 heading into the 2026-2027 season.
They have a 14-man roster with six portal transfers, three graduate students, one senior, two juniors, one redshirt junior, one sophomore, one redshirt freshman and five freshmen with an average age of 20.4.
Mission accomplished: bigger, older and more experienced Penn State will be this upcoming season.
- Jay Rodgers – Age 25 – Senior
- Dasonte Bowen – 23 – Graduate Student
- Roko Prkcacin – 23 – Freshman
- Josh Reed (eligibility pending) – 22 – Graduate Student
- Thomas Allard – 22 – Graduate Student
- Francois Wibaut – 21 – Freshman
- Brant Byers – 20 – Redshirt Junior
- Tim Oboh – 20 – Junior
- Roberts Blums – 20 – Junior
- Ivan Juric – 20 – Sophomore
- Reggie Grodin – 20 – Redshirt Freshman
- Aleksander Zecevic – 20 – Freshman
- Andy Gemao – 20 – Freshman
- Grant Spacciapolli – 18 – Freshman
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