March feels like yesterday.
We were all clinging to our TVs, watching Andrew Funk and Jalen Pickett hit a bunch of shots to send Penn State’s men’s basketball squad to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 12 long years.
It was electric. It was amazing. People were locked in on Penn State’s men’s program for the first time in years. It was the talk of Happy Valley. Fans who hadn’t watched in years came back, and for the ones that had, it was the March so many of them patiently waited for.
And then, in typical Penn State basketball fashion, the nice thing – or in this case – the good coach was gone. Whether it be NIL or the thought of returning home, Micah Shrewsberry left his annoying neighbors for Notre Dame before March was over.
But that doesn’t mean Penn State’s men’s basketball program is back to square one.
Just because Mike Rhoades is a new head coach, the roster is nearly completely different and a new era is beginning doesn’t mean that expectations should change with Penn State men’s basketball. The apathy can not appear again. That will be his real marker of success.
Penn State can be a school where you make the tournament more than three times over a quarter-century. Penn State is a school where its basketball team can get some attention, too.
Now let’s pump the breaks a bit.
Penn State doesn’t need to reach the tournament this season. That’s probably an unrealistic expectation for Rhoades’ team with nine transfers playing in the Big Ten and some tough non-conference games. As I mentioned, all of this is new. There’s a learning curve and it’s unrealistic to apply that type of pressure this season.
Rhoades gets a grace period on reaching the tournament – no doubt.
But it shouldn’t take 12 years like it did two times ago when Penn State switched coaches.
Shrewsberry showed you can win at Penn State in two years. It can be a school where its men’s basketball program makes real progress.
That’s probably a more reasonable expectation you can collectively put on Rhoades’ staff. Show fans progress and they will respect you. That tangible success, much like Shrewsberry, might have to come via the transfer portal, the most powerful weapon any new coach has in college basketball. But it can be done. It can happen even at Penn State where the shot clock at the Bryce Jordan Center barely works and the curtains can’t hide empty seats fast enough.
Penn State can and should have a basketball program that matters nationally – not one scoffed at as the basketball team to the football school.
Now, unlike Shrewsberry, it’d be nice if Rhoades stuck around a tad longer – to actually keep the program growing beyond two years – but we’re going to focus on the now. The now features a hodge-podge of those transfer players from around the country and Rhoades’ old stomping grounds of VCU coming together.
There’s his star in Ace Baldwin Jr. who won the Atlantic 10’s Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year awards. There’s Puff Johnson, who returns home from playing with the Tar Heels in North Carolina, and he’s joined by his former teammate in D’Marco Dunn.
There’s Leo O’Boyle, who in addition to having an incredible name and mustache, also has more than 1,000 points and 196 threes to his name after a career at Lafayette.
Rhoades isn’t exactly starting from scratch. There’s experience. Maybe not in blue and white, but there is experience. There’s a team that knows what it’s doing to some degree so things don’t have to be bad just because he’s the new guy in town.
Too often that felt like the excuse with Pat Chambers. He’s new. He’s trying to build something. He had to build something. He might be building something.
It would take time. And time ticked and tocked and lost to Rider.
By the time there was any progress, there was controversy with Chambers, setting any of it back and paving the way for a former Boston Celtics and Purdue assistant to step in.
Shrewsberry then shredded all of those excuses Chambers got within two years thanks to one memorable March. He reminded a lot of people that Penn State men’s basketball was (1.) still a thing and (2.) a thing that can actually do, well, things.
Making people care again about Penn State basketball was his true crowning achievement. He ripped up every “football school” notion and threw it in your face with a deep run in the Big Ten Tournament and a win for the first time since 2001 in the NCAA Tournament.
And what’s different about Shrewsberry or Chambers is that Rhoades himself is a proven winner at bigger levels. At VCU, he racked up a 129-60 record. He won several A-10 championships and reached the NCAA Tournament three times over six years with Rams. There’s a reason why he was hired.
But back to that grace period. Penn State gave Chambers too long of a grace period. Shrewsberry probably didn’t give Pat Kraft enough of a grace period to get NIL figured out. And when it comes to Rhoades, he should get one as well.
What can’t happen is for Penn State’s collective apathy for men’s basketball to pop up again. People do care. People will care. Don’t give them a reason to not.
It falls on Rhoades’ shoulders to make sure the apathy doesn’t return during that grace period.
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