Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1547107
4 2 N O V E M B E R 2 0 2 6 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M then there's competition, I think that you want competitive leaders. There are guys who want to be captains or think they want to be leaders, but when it gets so tough and competitive, are they still leading even when there's adversity? That's the key. That's true leadership. It's easy to lead when things are going well for you. It's easy to say the right things when things are going your way. But when it's the other way around, when your team's down a couple of points in a drill, are you rallying your team to find a way to win? When the team you're on in practice is having a bad day, can you find a way to jump- start them, turn the page, change things a n d p i v o t y o u r team? That, to me, is real leadership. For me, captains are guys you're go- i n g to b e i n t h e foxhole with, and when you jump out of the foxhole, you know they're not running the wrong way. They're run- ning with you toward the storm, toward the fight. They want that. That's true leadership. You don't have to be the leader just by how loud your voice is. You're a leader by your actions, especially in adversity. That's the key. Do we have that? Yeah, we do. I think we have a group of guys who, because we're older and have some high-character, mature kids, get that. Now, will the alpha leader take over? That's to be determined. BWI Do you feel like the perimeter de- fense can be at the level it needs to be this season? RHOADES It has to be. That's the key to everything. We didn't guard the three-point shot last season. We couldn't guard the ball. That created all the three-point shots. If you're soft, it's really hard to be a good defensive team. We've got to be so tough on the defensive end. That's the key to the season: how we're going to guard in the full-court and half-court. That's the key to how we do things, and it won't be perfect, but we've got to execute our defense at a high level. It's got to start with tough- ness on the ball and being able to guard the ball individually and as a team, and take people out of what they do. BWI Without depth, can you press? RHOADES We won't do that. We've got to play differently. We don't have the depth to press and trap for 40 minutes. We just don't. If we tried to do that, it would be lunacy. We just can't. We can't afford it. It is what it is. But I've coached and played different ways. Part of coach- ing and being a coach for a long time is that you've coached and taught different ways, and we've done that. We'll be different on the defensive end, but we're going to be aggressive and tough. If we're not aggressive and tough, it doesn't matter what defense you play. We'll have Big Ten size, so we've got to be able to rebound, and we've got to be able to gain extra posses- sions and rebound on the offensive end. We have some length now. We might not have all the athletes other teams have, but in the system we're going to try to run and with our ability to ex- ecute, we've got to execute at a really high level on both ends of the court. BWI Last season was such a difficult slog and a tough road. You recently saw one of your Big Ten counterparts, Dana Altman of Oregon, retire abruptly. How do you feel going into this season? RHOADES I'm really excited about my team. There is no offseason now, the way this is. And at a place like ours, we're recruiting all year round. We're still putting our team together in June. I don't care who you are, it wears on ev- erybody. It's not like it used to be. But if you want to do this, you've got to be able to change, and you've got to be able to maneuver and pivot, detour, whatever you want to call it. My dad used to al- ways say this: "It is what it is. What are you going to do about it?" I was really disappointed in our sea- son last year. I knew going into the season how hard it was going to be be- cause I knew we were too young, and I knew what everybody else in the league was doing. But I'm not an excuse guy. Let's figure it out a ny way. A n d we weren't figuring it out. We we re c l o s e a t t i m e s. We a l l saw that. But we weren't figuring it out, and that wears on you. You want to be able to fix it. You want to be able to change it. You want to be able to push people forward to make it better. And that stuff wears on you all the time. I've never coached where people looked at us and said we're soft and we're not a tough team. And I felt last year that anybody who played us could say that, and that's on me. But when you're the youngest team, and you're asking guys to play major minutes who can't play major minutes at this level, it's really hard. It definitely wears on you. We had moments when we were close, but we didn't have enough to get where we wanted to go. BWI Is there anything else that you want people to know about this year's team? RHOADES We're not a pressing team, so we've got to guard. We've got to be able to guard and rebound in the half- court and just make it really hard. We're not going to throw a shutout, but we've got to make sure that, win or lose, when people get on the bus to go back home, they talk about how tough we were. That has to be there. ■ "We're not a pressing team, so we've got to guard. We've got to be able to guard and rebound in the half-court and just make it really hard. We're not going to throw a shutout, but we've got to make sure that, win or lose, when people get on the bus to go back home, they talk about how tough we were." R H O A D E S