For better or worse, Penn State men’s basketball’s 2024 season has come to an end.

After starting out on a hot streak, the Nittany Lions fell on hard times during Big Ten play, finishing 6-14 in conference play and missing the Big Ten Tournament.

After declining to play in a postseason tournament, Mike Rhoades took to the stand on Wednesday for an end-of-season press conference.

On Lessons Learned From This Season

Despite the disappointing second half of the 2024 season, Rhoades said he learned a lot during his second year at the helm in Happy Valley.

After a 12-2 start to the season complete with an upset of Purdue, expectations were high. Then, conference play hit, and the Nittany Lions managed just four more wins over the season.

“It’s on me as the head coach of this program,” Rhoades said. “We had a lot of good moments early and a lot of expectations because of early season success, but then too many times the wheels fell off.”

Because of the collapse, Rhoades said everything down to the way the huddle is run will have to be reevaluated before next season. While the Nittany Lions were close all year long, they nearly always ended up on the wrong side of the score.

Ultimately, though, the goal remains to win Big Ten games.

“Last year and this year, we’ve had moments that you can say some good things about,” Rhoades said. “But this year, too much faltering when when we needed to to prosper.”

On International Recruiting & Transfer Targets

While coaches have begun to adapt to balancing high school recruiting and the transfer portal, coaches also recruit in the international market, which has become increasingly important over the past few seasons.

Rhoades and his staff rely on overseas connections to find and scout players in other countries. Rhoades said former players and coaches are among the contacts that will send him players to watch, and he’s benefitted from his network.

“I think it’s very important to us,” Rhoades said. “We’ve seen it around basketball the past two years specifically. Let’s be open to that, it’s helped us.”

Before scouting across an ocean, Rhoades has the transfer portal to contend with. Rhoades is recruiting from high school and the portal and said he’s trying to bulk up the roster with “size and girth.”

“We’ve got returning players that have got to put on a body of armor that could win games in the Big Ten,” he said. “But we also have to go out and recruit guys with a body of armor.”

Rhoades thinks that size will help bolster his style of play and could be the difference in Big Ten games next season. While the portal is a good place to find partially developed talent, Rhoades also has to work to retain his own roster.

While the portal doesn’t officially open until Monday, freshman Jahvin Carter announced his intention to enter the portal while Rhoades was available to the media on Wednesday.

“We just had an open conversation, and I really appreciate the honesty and feedback from Jahvin,” Rhoades said. “Jahvin is looking for something he thought was out there, and I’m OK with that.”

On Team Culture

Dropping 11 of 12 games in the middle of conference play was a strain on team morale for the Nittany Lions during January and February. Even through the adversity, though, there were parts of the team’s culture that Rhoades liked.

“When you have a new program and a new culture, that gets dented at times,” Rhoades said. “I’ll be the first one to say that there were times I didn’t think [the culture] was where we needed to be.”

Even with the “dented” culture and missing the conference tournament, Rhoades learned a lot about the true culture of the team. Even when they were mathematically eliminated from tournament contention, the team stuck together and rattled off a season-ending upset over Wisconsin.

Getting the morale back to where it needs to be, and then maintaining it, is easier said than done, though. Even so, Rhoades isn’t shying away from the task.

“There are things we’ve got to do in recruiting, there are things we’ve got to do with our guys returning, there are things we’ve got to do in the level of accountability with everybody in the program to make it better,” Rhoades said. “But it starts with me.”

On Rhoades’ Message To Fans

The high expectations around the new year coupled with the losing streak that followed led to a muted Bryce Jordan Center during games late in the season. Rhoades’ early “sweat with us” plea wasn’t enough to survive Big Ten Play.

Rhoades, however, isn’t shying away from the criticism of his team and remains sympathetic to the cause of Penn State basketball fans.

“Fans are short for fanatics, and I get it,” Rhoades said. “I want our fans to be all in as we build this. It’s not always going to go the way we want, but it’s going to keep going.”

While fans might not always be proud of the product on the court, Rhoades takes pride in the fact that they can always be proud of the players off of it. Rhoades makes sure his players do well in school and become active in the community to represent the university well.

“One thing Pat Kraft said to me was that people around here have expectations,” Rhoades said. “I want that. I want fans to be pissed after we lose a game we should’ve won like I am, but I want them coming back.”