When Penn State made the NCAA Tournament last season, not only was it a huge relief, it felt like things were finally turning around for a program that has been obsolete within its own athletic department for years.
There was real momentum around the program it felt like they had a coach that could build something in Happy Valley.
Then, Micah Shrewsberry left for Notre Dame and all that positivity seemingly vanished.
Athletic director Pat Craft hired VCU’s head coach Mike Rhoades to take over the program and he immediately went to work in the transfer portal to add players.
So, after coming off a season that saw Penn State make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011, what would success look like in year one under Rhoades?
This is a wins-and-loss business, so while establishing a culture and building to something will certainly be discussed in this article, winning games is also important.
Success on the surface would be finishing above 10th in the conference.
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That will be a tall task. The Big Ten is loaded with talented teams full of returning, experienced players. Penn State doesn’t have that luxury as the majority of their roster are transfers with some getting their first taste of Power-5 basketball.
Still, that should be the goal and that would be a successful season when talking about wins and losses.
Flipping back to the long-term vision, a successful season would also happen if the Nittany Lions are able to grow into the system that Rhoades wants to deploy.
He has an aggressive style of defense that will pressure and harass opposing ball handlers. His offense is slow and methodical, using pick-and-roll action to set up mismatches for efficient scoring.
Making that transition will be difficult for players who haven’t operated in that style before.
If this team starts to look like the VCU teams that Rhoades had, he is ahead of schedule in starting to build this Penn State program into one that had a ton of success in the Atlantic-10 and made the NCAA Tournament in three out of his six seasons.