Kanye Clary is no longer on the Penn State men’s basketball team, Mike Rhoades announced Monday, and cited his departure from the Bryce Jordan Center as a “coach’s decision.”

“Every decision is based on moving the program forward,” Rhoades said. “And then sometimes the decisions are delicate and hard, but they also got to be made, too.”

Clary was listed as “out” on the team’s Big Ten availability report against Nebraska Saturday and missed two additional games after an injury suffered against Minnesota on January 27.

Clary served as the team’s leading scorer with 16.7 points per game, ranking No. 7 in the Big Ten.

The Nittany Lions now finds themselves in an interesting spot with five regular-season games and a potential Big Ten Tournament remaining on the schedule.

From here, Rhoades made it clear the rest of the team is unfazed and ready to move forward continuing to build the program’s culture.

“It’s next man up. Let’s continue to love to build this the right way, work really hard, keep putting it together,” Rhoades said. “We’ve had a lot of good moments, just not consistent moments throughout this first year, and that’s what we want to get back…to get back to a level of consistency.”

The group is on the tail end of a tumultuous six-game stretch featuring three straight losses, including a season-low 49-point performance.

However, Penn State basketball is well versed in adversity and recovering from it, and Rhoades is prepared to progress with the players still in the locker room.

“I think we have a competitive group. I think we have guys that are mad and upset after losses. I don’t like the result, but I love their approaches,” Rhoades said. “I love how this group keeps coming back to work every day and coming to practice and working and guys sticking around afterward to try and get better… It’s how you handle it, how you keep figuring it out the next day. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

Ace Baldwin Jr. role continues to grow and will pick up pace in the absence of Clary. He’s averaging 35 minutes a night and playing some of the most minutes in the conference and country.

Like most seasons, his defense has been phenomenal, posting 73 steals and leading the Big Ten on top of his ability to find open scorers. He’s totaled 5.8 assists per game and continues to be a clutch scorer for this team with late-game heroics.

With the season nearly over, Penn State is playing for more than wins and losses. It’s playing to prove it can recover and what kind of team it wants to be.