The good news had been rolling in for everyone involved regarding the Penn State basketball program. New head coach [autotag]Mike Rhoades[/autotag] had hit the transfer portal hard, getting some big names to join the Nittany Lions for the upcoming season. He was also able to convince [autotag]Kanye Clary[/autotag] and [autotag]Jameel Brown[/autotag] to stay with the program after the head coaching change.
There was hope that [autotag]Evan Mahaffey[/autotag] would be one of the players that would come back to Penn State after entering his name in the transfer portal around five weeks ago.
Unfortunately, that did not come to fruition.
Mahaffey committed to Big Ten foe Ohio State on Wednesday after one year in State College.
He was part of the 2022 class that was Penn State’s highest recruiting class ever and was able to see the floor in his freshman season. He appeared in 34 games for Penn State last year, averaging 9.4 minutes per game.
Penn State transfer Evan Mahaffey has committed to Ohio State, per his Twitter page.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) May 3, 2023
Mahaffey is an Ohio native who decided to leave the state despite being offered by two Ohio universities when coming out of high school. Mahaffey was a consensus three-star recruit who was the sixth-ranked player in the state and the 192nd-ranked player in the country.
This may seem eerily similar to some Penn State fans who saw former Nittany Lion guard, [autotag]Jamari Wheeler[/autotag], depart State College for Columbus in 2021, although, Wheeler did leave as a graduate transfer.
Mahaffey leaving is a bit of a blow to Penn State who sees one of their young rotation players leaving after one season. In the 9.4 minutes per game, he averaged 2.8 points and 1.1 rebounds but started to come on strong towards the end of the year. There was no doubt that he would have played major minutes his sophomore season for Penn State after the departures of the graduating seniors.
Ultimately, Mahaffey decided to go back to his home state and will now see his former school at least two times a year. Based on the reception that Wheeler received, the fans may have those games circled on their calendars.
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