Tag: Pat Kraft

5 things to know about new head coach Mike Rhoades

Penn State has made Mike Rhoades the next head coach of the basketball program. Here are five things to know about Coach Rhoades

It seems like Athletic Director [autotag]Pat Kraft[/autotag] has made his first big hire in his Penn State tenure. After the departure of [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] to Notre Dame, all eyes were on Kraft to see how he would approach finding a replacement.

[autotag]Mike Rhoades[/autotag] will be named the next head coach of the Penn State basketball program, leaving VCU after six seasons.

After an amazing March that was highlighted by a Big Ten Championship appearance and first round victory in the NCAA Tournament, it was clear there is a basketball fanbase at Penn State. These fans have been clamoring for the school to take basketball more seriously and put resources into the program.

Kraft said that he is willing to prioritize the basketball program. Those words were going to be tested after the Shrewsberry seemingly left for greener pastures in South Bend.

On the surface, it looks like Kraft delivered on his statement. Hiring Rhoades away from a strong mid-major program shows a commitment to getting top talent. It’s reported that Rhoades will be paid more than $3 million per year, double what his salary was at VCU.

With the new head coach set in stone, here are five things to know about Mike Rhoades.

Penn State names Mike Rhoades new head basketball coach

All Rhoades lead to Happy Valley? Penn State officially announces new basketball head coach hire

Penn State’s search for a new head basketball coach officially came to an end Monday afternoon. Following a vote to approve the proposed contract, [autotag]Mike Rhoades[/autotag] has been named the head basketball coach of the Nittany Lions. Penn State officially announced the hiring shortly after the terms of the contract were approved by the board of trustees, thus bringing the Pennsylvania native back to the state with hopes of building a program that can become a consistent winner.

Rhoades comes to Penn State following a six-year run as the head coach at VCU, where he took the Rams to three NCAA tournament appearances. This past season, Rhoades coached VCU to the regular season and conference tournament championship in the A-10, en route to his latest trip to the NCAA tournament. Rhoades has a career coaching record of 373-189 and 19 years of college basketball coaching experience.

“We are excited to welcome Mike Rhoades as our head men’s basketball coach,” Penn State athletics director [autotag]Pat Kraft[/autotag] said in a released statement. “He is a veteran head coach who is a proven winner at multiple levels. Mike has been a tremendous recruiter and talent developer throughout his career. As a Pennsylvania native with a strong family history with our University, Mike understands what it means to be a Penn Stater and how impactful it is to be part of Nittany Nation. Mike has a vision of how to build Penn State Basketball into a championship program. We are thrilled to welcome Mike, Jodie, Logan, Chase and Porter to Happy Valley!”

Rhoades is originally from Pennsylvania, with his hometown being Mahoney City, PA. He went on to graduate from Lebanon Valley College in 1995 before heading to VCU for postgraduate studies. Rhoades has helped develop NBA players with seven players from VCU going on to be draft picks while Rhoades was either an assistant coach or head coach from 2018 through 2022.

Much like how James Franklin returned to Pennsylvania to take over a program in need of stability, Rhoades will look to do the same for a program lacking in sustained basketball success. Penn State is coming off just its fourth NCAA tournament appearance since joining the Big Ten in 1993, but Rhoades is also the first head coach to be hired by Penn State with as an established track record as he has.

“We will be bold, different and aggressive moving our program forward,” Rhoades said in a brief statement shared by Penn State’s athletics department. “We will play with great energy and excitement while always being relentless in our pursuit of making this basketball family into something special. I can’t wait to get to work.”

Now it’s time to let Rhoades get to work securing a roster. With a roster depleted by graduation and the transfer portal, there is a lot of room to fill on the basketball roster for Rhoades and his soon-to-be-assembled coaching staff.

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Should assistant Adam Fisher be the next basketball head coach?

Adam Fisher has been a hot name to replace Micah Shrewsberry as head coach. Is he the right man for the job?

The announcement of [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] reportedly packing his bags and heading to Notre Dame has caused some ripple effects for the Penn State basketball program.

After a Big Ten championship game appearance and first-round NCAA Tournament victory, the program looked to be on the rise. That momentum escaped the building quickly after the news of Shrewsberry’s departure broke this week.

Now, Athletic Director [autotag]Pat Kraft[/autotag] is tasked with the first big hire of his tenure at Penn State. There have been some great hires and there have been some misses in his previous locations. If Penn State truly ever wants its basketball program to be a serious player in the Big Ten conference, this decision has to be the right one.

With multiple candidates being potential options, maybe the best one is already in State College.

[autotag]Adam Fisher[/autotag] served as the associate head coach under Shrewsberry at Penn State. The Pennsylvania native was an integral part of getting the recruiting classes and transfer players into the program these past two seasons.

There’s been growing support for Fisher to take over the head coaching role. Let’s take a look at his profile to see if the best candidate is already at Penn State.

Penn State AD releases statement on departure of Micah Shrewsberry

Penn State AD releases statement on Micah Shrewsberry’s departure for Notre Dame

Following reports of Penn State losing its head basketball coach to Notre Dame, Penn State’s first official statement on the departure of [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag] has been released. Penn State athletics director Pat Kraft released a brief statement confirming the news of Shrewsberry accepting an offer from another school on Wednesday evening. In his statement, Kraft confirmed the school is already working on finding a new head coach to lead the program moving forward.

Here is the full statement from Kraft released by Penn State’s athletics department on Wednesday evening.

“This afternoon, Penn State Head Men’s Basketball Coach Micah Shrewsberry called to inform me that he was leaving the University to accept a position at another institution. We thank Micah for his contributions to the PSU community and wish him the very best. We are already moving forward in a search for a new head coach and will identify and appoint a tremendous coach, teacher and person, who will take us to unprecedented heights.

We are so proud of our amazingly talented student-athletes and all they accomplished this year and will in the future. We are also so appreciative of our student body and our passionate fans who support our basketball program.”

Penn State is in a critical point for its basketball program. After making its first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011 and winning its first NCAA tournament game since 2001, the Nittany Lions face significant roster turnover from graduation, NBA draft entrants, and the transfer portal. A timeline for Penn State naming its next head coach is unknown, although it would seem likely the search will move quickly.

Making a hire soon would allow the next head coach to start tackling all of the work that needs to be done with the roster with the transfer portal and recruiting. Penn State was already having an active week with roster management and recruiting, and it remains unknown how this coaching change impacts that work.

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Penn State’s next move yet another critical one for future of basketball program

Penn State’s next coaching hire will be a big one for AD Pat Kraft as it looks for a new basketball leader

The life of a Penn State basketball fan has been a painful experience for many supporters of the program over the years. And just as it seemed the program was about to hit a turning point in favor of more regular success instead of waiting a decade for a shot at experiencing the NCAA tournament, Penn State once again finds itself at a potential critical fork in the road. The departure of head coach [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag], who reportedly agreed to a lengthy contract at Notre Dame after two seasons in Happy Valley, leaves Penn State in a position of need for a head coach who can continue down the path Shrewsberry was paving without having to take a major detour.

Whoever becomes the next head coach of the Nittany Lions will have a good amount of work to do right off the bat. Seth Lundy declared for the NBA draft. A pair of players entered the transfer portal. And [autotag]Jalen Pickett[/autotag], [autotag]Andrew Funk[/autotag], and [autotag]Myles Dread[/autotag] are key players departing the program as well. The transfer portal can ease the pressure with the right conversations and decisions being made with the roster, just as Shrewsberry did right from the start of his brief tenure in State College.

But the real work will have to be done on the recruiting trail, which is a bit more difficult to start given the timing of everything. And the possibility Shrewsberry will lure any top targets to South Bend after initially working on them for Penn State is a real possibility to consider.

Ultimately, what Penn State athletics director [autotag]Pat Kraft[/autotag] is tasked with doing is not necessarily finding the big splash hire for the sake of generating headlines, but finding the right coach for the job. Players have already voiced their support for [autotag]Adam Fisher[/autotag], one of Penn State’s top assistant coaches under Shrewsberry and a former assistant at Villanova and Miami. This turns out being the first major hire for Kraft since being named the school’s athletics director in succeeding Sandy Barbour, who brought Shrewsberry to Penn State.

If you need to have some confidence in Kraft’s ability to identify a good coaching candidate, take a look at some of his notable hires at previous stops. He hired Matt Rhule to be the head football coach at Temple in 2013, and it’s pretty safe to say that worked out pretty well for all parties involved. After Rhule left Temple for Baylor, Kraft hired Geoff Collins to keep things going with the OPwls program, resulting in back-to-back winning seasons. He did hire Rod Carey to be Temple’s next football coach after Collins left for Georgia Tech, so 2-1 isn’t too bad.

Kraft’s men’s college basketball coaching hire at Temple, following the resignation of Fran Dunphy, was thought to be a solid hire with Aaron McKie. McKie was an easy pick for the Owls, but he was just let go by Temple after his fourth season on the job with just one winning season. His coaching hire for the Boston College program, Earl Grant, hasn’t quite panned out for the Eagles after two seasons, although they did win three more games this season compared to the previous season. Hooray for progress?

But Penn State has deeper pockets and more to offer with its financial abilities compared to Temple and Boston College. Penn State still has a long way to go to being a regularly competitive college basketball program, but now is the time to change the narrative.

Penn State has dug deep into the pockets of its football program, which is admittedly the lifeblood of the entire athletics department and has been for decades. It has a history of hiring national championship-caliber programs like Cael Sanderson (wrestling) and Russ Rose (women’s volleyball). It has invested heavily in building a men’s ice hockey program from near scratch and has quickly built a budding NCAA contender in just a matter of a handful of years.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, should be standing in the way of Penn State giving Kraft the green light on making the absolute best hire possible and ensuring the next head coach will have the full financial backing to improve facilities, NIL opportunities, and more for the future stability of the basketball program.

Penn State shouldn’t settle for a coach to go through another rebuild that leads to a return to the NCAA tournament a decade from now. It needs a coach who will keep Penn State fielding a competitive roster through recruiting and the transfer portal for years to come. A step back in the 2023-24 season can be understandable, if not anticipated and expected, but it is beyond time to accept mediocrity as the standard for Penn State basketball.

So when Penn State announces who the next head coach will be, don’t expect a big splashy hire. Instead, look to see how the school and its leadership are committed to a long-term vision for the program that doesn’t waste time in turning words into actions.

The time is now, Penn State.

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James Franklin says Penn State has right AD, president to achieve great football success

James Franklin says Penn State’s university leadership has football program in good hands for years to come

For the first time during head coach James Franklin’s time at Penn State., the university appears to have a stabilized leadership at the university level to allow for the future success of the football program the way Franklin envisions it. Speaking to ESPN at Big Ten media day this week, Franklin praised the university’s hiring of president Neeli Bendapudi and athletics director Pat Kraft and suggested they are leaders that can help Penn State take the next step toward building a championship-caliber program.

“For the first time, the alignment is the way it should be,” Franklin said to ESPN this week. “I mean this in total respect. We’re doing things and making decisions to move past. It’s not all in response, which is what I’ve been living with for eight years. We’re finally at that point, and that’s powerful.”

Franklin has always been vocal about stating what he feels Penn State needs in order to take the next steps in progressing as a football program, and for years he felt he was in a position where he needed to be more vocal about those desires. But now, Franklin appears to feel comfortable knowing there are leaders in place that can help take that pressure off of his hands.

“There’s things that I’m watching my AD say that I used to have to say before,” Franklin said. “Now I don’t have to. I can focus on coaching ball and not be pounding the table.”

During Big Ten media days this week, Kraft spoke to the media about a concern over Penn State having so many Big Ten openers played on the road over the years. Penn State is about to open its third consecutive season with a road game against a Big Ten team (Indiana in 2020, Wisconsin in 2021, and Purdue in 2022).

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Big Ten media days: Penn State AD frustrated over abundance of Big Ten road openers

Has Penn State played more than enough B1G openers on the road? AD Pat Kraft sure thinks so.

In a little more than a month, Penn State will begin a new season on the road with a Big Ten contest at Purdue. The Nittany Lions are opening a third consecutive season with a Big Ten conference matchup, and for the third consecutive season, that game will be played on the road. Penn State athletics director Pat Kraft is not exactly thrilled about this trend for Penn State.

“It stinks, it stinks,” Kraft said at Big Ten media day in Indianapolis on Wednesday, according to Lions247. “[James Franklin] called me the other day. I said, ‘What?’ I called the conference office and said this is unacceptable. So we’re addressing that right away.”

Penn State opened the adjusted 2020 season with a road game at Indiana. Last season, Penn State opened the season with a Week 1 contest at Wisconsin. And this season will begin with a road trip to Purdue for a nationally televised Thursday night showdown.

While opening so many seasons of conference play on the road does feel a bit odd, the question should probably be whether or not it really matters. Big Ten schedules fluctuate between four and five home games each season with the current scheduling format, so Big Ten teams will be at a disadvantage with conference travel every other year. That’s to be expected. But does it negatively impact if the first conference game is at home or away?

Regardless, Kraft is taking measures to ensure Penn State isn’t opening Big Ten play on the road more than others around the conference moving forward.

“That shouldn’t happen at Penn State,” he said. “We should be at home for our opener. I think it’s nine or seven years (now). That’s crazy. That stinks. I did deal with that. I called our friends in the conference, who I love dearly. But that’s not right.”

The importance of opening conference play at home or away is fair to debate, but Penn State should probably be more upset it has to open a third straight season on the road in conference play. It’s one thing to open conference play later in September on the road, but to open three consecutive seasons away from home because the television schedule and conference schedule want it is another issue worth barking about.

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