After Penn State hired away [autotag]Mike Rhoades[/autotag] from VCU, the VCU program was hit hard by players entering the transfer portal. The likelihood that at least one VCU player makes his way to Penn State to continue playing for Rhoades seemed pretty obvious as Penn State’s roster was also decimated by departures and the transfer portal in the fallout of its own coaching search’s early stages. According to a handful of predictions from recruiting experts, Penn State is the early favorite to land not only VCU’s top player in the transfer portal, but the Atlantic-10 player of the year.
Adrian “Ace” Baldwin is the hot name in the transfer portal out of VCU at the moment. And while the A-10 player of the year figures to have plenty of worthwhile offers to consider, Penn State is the crystal ball prediction from three recruiting analysts on 247Sports. Tyler Calvaruso of Lions247, Colby Giacubeno of InsideMDSports and Justin Thind of SpartanTailgate all have cast a crystal ball prediction in favor of Penn State since [autotag]Ace Baldwin[/autotag] entered the transfer portal just two days ago when Rhoades was formally introduced as Penn State’s new head coach.
The Baltimore native point guard averaged 12.7 points per game and 5.8 assists last season for VCU. In addition to being named the A-10 player of the year, Baldwin was also praised for his defense as the conference’s defensive player of the year. As Penn State is in need of veterans on the roster with the roster turning over the way it is, Baldwin would be a tremendous asset to the team in 2023-24 if he decides to continue playing for Rhoades at Penn State.
Penn State experienced tremendous success with the transfer portal under Micah Shrewsberry. Penn State’s first NCAA tournament team since 2011 was fueled by transfers Jalen Pickett, Andrew Funk, and Camren Wynter. Baldwin could be the next in line to give Penn State hope through the transfer portal, although he would definitely be more known for his defense than his offensive skillset. And that could be the biggest difference between Shrewsberry’s teams and Rhoades’ as Shrewsberry was more about the offense and Rhoades specializes more with his defensive approach as a head coach.
But that doesn’t mean Penn State won’t have offense to worry about. The hiring of former Nittany Lion on Crispin figures to help design an offense that will keep the scoring output going after directing one of the better offenses in Division 3.
Penn State currently has four players in the transfer portal; [autotag]Jameel Brown[/autotag], [autotag]Evan Mahaffey[/autotag], [autotag]Dallion Johnson[/autotag], and [autotag]Caleb Dorsey[/autotag]. It would not be shocking to see any of these players decide to withdraw from the transfer portal as the decisions to enter the portal were largely made as Penn State searched for a replacement for Shrewsberry. But expect plenty of transfer portal activity for Penn State as Rhoades looks to fill his first roster in State College.
Baldwin would be a great addition to get the momentum going in the portal.
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