Penn State’s two basketball programs will enter another weekend of their season without a conference win. The two teams have put together a Big Ten record of 0-18, landing them both near the bottom of the conference’s standings.

Heads are beginning to turn towards Mike Rhoades, the men’s basketball head coach, who was brought on to build a respectable Penn State basketball program. Rhoades and his team’s results have fallen short of the little expectation there was pre-season; however, they have proved to be a tough win for numerous nationally ranked conference opponents.

In those four matchups, the Nittany Lions have lost by a combined 22 points, with 2 points as their closest margin of loss against No. 2 Michigan. Their two convincing losses, against No. 2 Michigan and No. 9 Michigan State, were both on their home court in the Bryce Jordan Center.

On the contrary, the four conference losses to unranked teams tell a completely different story. Penn State’s average margin of loss in these games is 26 points, which includes a 41-point blowout loss against Indiana in Bloomington.

Following their loss to Wisconsin, Rhoades talked about their conference struggles.

“We’ve had stretches where we played good basketball against good teams in the Big Ten, but we really beat ourselves,” Rhoades said. “You have to play really good basketball to win in the Big Ten.”

Rhoades’ tenure at Penn State has been grueling. He was hired to sustain success following the Nittany Lions’ unexpected appearance in March Madness. Rhoades’ first two seasons resulted in an 11^th-place and second-to-last finish in the standings with 15 combined conference wins.

This year’s team is different; they’re young, raw, and comprised of his own recruits. Yet, they have taken the final regression to the bottom of the Big Ten’s standings. The silver lining for Penn State’s basketball program is Rhoades’s history, which reflects delayed success.

“I’ve been at some other places too, and you have some tough years, but you’ve got to learn from everything. Building a program is really hard. Building a program at a place that doesn’t have much basketball tradition is even harder,” Rhoades said following the most recent loss to Wisconsin. “I signed up for it, man, and I believe in me, and I believe in how we do things. Some of you guys may not – I don’t really care; I never cared before. I’ll figure it out; it might kill me, but I’m going to figure it out.”

Rhoades has figured it out before on multiple levels of competition.

At Randolph-Macon in 1999, Rhoades earned his first head coaching job. He had to follow the success of Hal Nunnally, who led the program to a record of 23-6. In his first two years, Rhoades was considerably successful, posting a 29-22 record and making a name for himself.

His next eight years at the Division III college skyrocketed his career. Rhoades led the Yellow Jackets to four NCAA tournament appearances, set the program record for wins in a season at 28, and captured Old Dominion Athletic Conference Coach of the Year on three separate occasions, and finished with a .726 winning percentage.

Following the 2008-09 season, Rhoades left for the associate head coach job at Virginia Commonwealth University. He served five seasons at VCU before taking his second head coaching job at Rice University.

Until Rhoades took the helm, Rice University had seen one winning season since joining Conference USA in 2005. Before his arrival, the program totaled 12 wins over two seasons, and only three in conference. Rhoades’ first two seasons at Rice were not success stories. They won 24 total games and finished a tick or two below the .500 mark in each campaign.

It was his third season at Rice that signified the program’s rebuild. Rhoades coached his team to a 23-12 record with 11 conference wins, which remains the most they have won since 2005.

After his successful third season, Rhoades rejoined VCU, this time as the program’s head coach. VCU already had sustained success with Shaka Smart and Will Wade leading the team to consecutive NCAA tournament appearances–similar to Penn State’s success with Micah Shrewsberry.

In line with his previous jobs, Rhoades’s first season wouldn’t be deemed successful. He coached VCU to an 18-15 record with nine conference wins. In the following season, VCU won 25 games, with sixteen Atlantic-10 wins – the most single-season wins since 2008. Rhoades brought his team to the NCAA Tournament three times over six seasons, though the trips were unsuccessful.

Before taking the job at Penn State, Rhoades concluded his time at VCU with a 27-win season, bringing his win percentage to .679.

Now, Rhoades resides in Happy Valley with a Penn State program that is only two full seasons out from their last NCAA Tournament appearance.

“People thought I was crazy [taking the Penn State job]. I know what I signed up for, I have self-belief,” Rhoades said, considering its lack of success and tradition. “I’m going to figure it out with every fiber in my being.”

His résumé suggests that patience is the key, but conference losses are piling up. It’s been nearly three seasons since his arrival, and Rhoades continues to reassert his ability, but without hardly anything to show for it, his future at Penn State is called into question.