Recruiting season for Penn State under new head coach [autotag]Mike Rhoades[/autotag] is officially underway. Coming into his tenure at Penn State, Rhoades and his staff built a reputation that they were elite recruiters at VCU.
Penn State basketball fans know all too well that the overall quality of player that has been in the program has not been up to Big Ten standards if they truly wanted to compete at the national level. It was one of the main reasons why the NCAA Tournament took over a decade to extinguish despite double digit conference teams getting invited.
Under previous head coach Micah Shrewsberry, he had back to back recruiting years that were the best in program history.
Rhoades will look to eclipse that in his first full year of recruiting for the Nittany Lions.
While sights are set on the 2024 class at the moment, basketball recruitment is something that constantly is taking place. Therefore, there was no time wasted in extending a scholarship offer to 2025 4-star forward Alier Maluk.
Blessed to receive an offer from Penn state đŚđŚ pic.twitter.com/cFfgPMP3dS
— Alier Maluk (@Maluk_Alier12) May 26, 2023
Maluk is a 6’10” prospect from Pittsburgh, PA.
He is currently ranked as the number 21 overall player in the country and the number two player in Pennsylvania according to On3’s industry rankings.
Maluk is a very interesting prospect. Even though he’s 6’10”, he primarily plays on the perimeter because he has a soft jump shot and can use his handles to get into the lane. Listed as 180 pounds right now, he has two more years of high school to get his body ready for the college basketball level.
On3’s Recruiting Prediction Machine currently has his hometown program of Pittsburgh listed as the favorites to land him with a 40.4% chance. West Virginia is second with 35.3% and Penn State comes in fourth with a 1.2% chance.
There is still a ways to go in Maluk’s recruitment process, even with the hometown school working hard to land him.
This will be a fantastic test to see what coach Rhoades can do in Pennsylvania, recruiting and getting commitments from top instate prospects and bringing them into the Penn State basketball program.
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