Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1540433
N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 5 47 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M ing curve there. But he's such a basketball savant that he understands it, and that's been really refreshing for me. Coaching him has been fun. BWI: How do you plan to use Tunca? RHOADES: He's just a really good basketball player. He's going to play all over the court. He could really pass and use ball screens, very good in transition, so the ball will be in his hands. But then, because he's a very good shooter, you also want to put him in places where he can get shots and hit some threes and get to his pull-up. So, yeah, he'll be playing all over the place. BWI: How are your new players on the defensive end? RHOADES: They're figuring it out. Our defense is a little bit different, too — for all our guys, because we have all these new faces. We've been really working on a big adjustment. Melih is really long and athletic, so he'll be good in the press and half-court. He's going to have to learn to guard really good wings in the Big Ten, but he will. They're still new, so it's all new … but they have a basketball IQ that really helps them. BWI: With a newer roster, does that change how you can approach installing your defense? RHOADES: When you have a lot of newer guys, there are just adjustments you have to make on both ends of the court. And I've done it everywhere I've been. My ideal style of play is to hound the ball for 40 minutes and then sit down in the half-court and get stops. When we've had quality depth and interchangeable pieces, we did that. We did that at a high level [at Virginia Commonwealth] where we were one of the best defensive teams in the country and turned people over. You've seen that here at Penn State at times, but we're not there yet. Now, with this group, we have some depth, for sure. We're just going to be super young. But we've still got to cre- ate some turnovers to create offense, and we've still got to find a way to sit down at half-court. I think we're bigger. We have bigger size. We don't have a shot blocker like Yanic, but overall, at times, we'll have five guys on the court with great height and length, and that will help. We're probably physically bigger than we have been my first two years. We're just young. My staff did an awe- some job getting the guys that we wanted, and that we can get, and that we wanted and fit what we were doing and what we want to do. And then these guys came in over the summer and went to work. That has been refreshing, for sure. BWI: How do you manage having the youngest team in the Big Ten? RHOADES: People are going to pass on us. Good, pass on us. But when these guys keep improving and we have some great nights, just make sure you talk about them in the right light. Because I like our group. We have a very high-character team. We have some really good pieces. We're just going to be really young and in- experienced. And when you're young and inexperienced, you're not as consistent as you want to be. We have to have a mental- ity of being spoilers every night, even in the nonconference season, being hunters and building the program from within. BWI: You're such a culture guy. Are the returning players helping with that? RHOADES: That's the key. That's what you're hoping for. I say every year, it still comes down to relationships. Coach- to-player relationships, player-to-player relationships. With all the transactional stuff going on in college athletics now, I get it, we've all got to play that game. But the reality is, can you connect with a young man and help him get somewhere where he might not be able to get him- self? That, to me, is the most important thing. Pour into our team, our staff. I think we have a phenomenal staff. I think the greatest strength of our program right now is the way these guys recruited under the circumstances, the way we approached it. We've got high- character kids here who are around a re- ally good coaching staff. Now, we've got to overachieve. We've got to fight like crazy and continue to build our culture the right way. But it still comes down to my relationship with the staff, my rela- tionship with the players, the players hav- ing a relationship with each other to try to move this program forward. With all the craziness of college athletics, if that's not No. 1 on my plate, and then I'm going to cheat these guys. We'll never even have an opportunity to try to get to where we want to go. BWI: Have any surprises emerged in how the team has re- sponded? RHOADES: I've really appreciated how hard these guys have worked, how they follow the plan. When we got here in June with all these new guys, [there was a] plan in the weight room. We've had sig- nificant gains, the best gains we had with guys' bodies in my three years here. Their approach to nutrition and getting extra work in [was good], but also taking care of their bodies in the training room with our trainer, Justin Polmar, who's done an awesome job with these guys. I've really appreciated that this group, by far, has been in the gym more than any team I've had in a long time. Pretty cool. But they're really young, so they need to be in the gym a lot. That's what you do. I've loved how close they all are. They all get along really well. They compete in practice. They're trying to take each other's minutes, which is great, because we haven't had that in my two years. There was somewhat of a pecking order, and some guys were just way ahead of others. Right now, there's great competi- tion in practice every day. Iron sharpens iron, that makes your program better. But they're doing it understanding the pur- "We've got high-character kids here who are around a really good coaching staff. Now, we've got to overachieve. We've got to fight like crazy and continue to build our culture the right way." R H O A D E S