Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1544053
A P R I L 2 0 2 6 47 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M T echnically, Penn State's 12 victories this season are not the fewest of the past decade. That designation be- longs to the 2020-21 campaign, when the Nittany Lions finished 11-14 in a season that was waylaid by coach Patrick Cham- bers' forced resignation just weeks before opening night, as well as the ongoing dis- ruptions brought on by COVID-19. Only 25 games were played that year. Semantics and qualifiers aside, though, the latest offering from Penn State's long-suffering men's basket- ball program was particularly bleak. On March 10 in Chicago, Northwestern brought down the curtain on the Nittany Lions' 2025-26 season, pulling away for a 76-66 win in the first round of the Big Ten Tournament. That showing dropped the Lions to 12- 20 overall, and they finished 3-17 during the Big Ten regular season. The .375 win- ning percentage was the team's worst since compiling a .323 mark in 2012-13 when it went 10-21 overall. The same is true on the conference side, with that year's .111 mark (2-16) narrowly edging the recently concluded campaign (.150) for the "worst" designation in recent memory. Mike Rhoades had rarely experienced anything like this in 21 previous seasons as a head coach. Before arriving at Penn State in 2023, he made stops at Ran- dolph-Macon, Rice and Virginia Com- monwealth. Even in difficult rebuild- ing situations, like the first two years of his three-year tenure at Rice, Rhoades' teams quickly stabilized and succeeded. Which is why the magnitude of this season's struggles stands out, even to him. Taking stock of the Nittany Lions' campaign following their season-ending loss to the Wildcats, Rhoades outlined the challenges he encountered and the lessons that were learned. In doing so, he provided a lens through which Penn State's predicament can be understood. "The world we live in now, you want to give yourself a chance. You want to give your team a chance to be successful, so it's hard," Rhoades said. "The reality is, when you're really young in Power Four basketball, you're at a disadvantage." A Shifting Landscape Rhoades had been making that point all season long, from preseason prac- tices through the struggles of the Big Ten schedule. At the season's conclusion, he expanded on the point, laying out how it will impact the offseason. "We need to get our young guys big- ger, better, and badder and stronger," Rhoades said. "That's it. You've got to be old. You've got to be old, because every- body else is. The best teams in our league and the best teams in the country are old and experienced. We've got to address some of that." There are, of course, some exceptions to Rhoades' argument. Per KenPom, top- ranked Duke is 302nd out of 365 Division I teams in experience this year. But the Blue Devils signed the No. 1 recruiting class in the 2025 cycle, and that shifts the calculus. Penn State ranks No. 332 in experience and doesn't have an annual influx of blue- chippers coming in to mitigate the ab- sence of veteran players. Gauged against the competition in their own conference, the Nittany Lions did stand apart during the 2025-26 season. The next-closest Big Ten program to Penn State in experience — or lack thereof — was Rutgers at No. 205, with Michigan State (197), Iowa (179) and Illinois (163) following. That isn't necessarily an argument for making age the top priority in the trans- fer portal. Plenty of programs floating MEN'S BASKETBALL SOMETHING OLD, SOMETHING NEW Penn State hopes to add veteran talent to a youthful roster that struggled through the 2025-26 season NAT E BAU E R | N AT E . B A U E R @ O N 3 . C O M Mike Rhoades has gone 44-52 in three seasons as the Nittany Lions' head coach, including a 12-20 mark this year. PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS