Just a week removed from winning its first Big Ten game of the season on a last-second Kayden Mingo shot, Penn State men’s basketball fell to USC at the buzzer on Sunday to deflate its conference record to 1-12.

In what’s been a season to forget, Mike Rhoades has to figure out how to generate positives out of the end of the year, going into year two of somewhat of a rebuild. It’s no secret that the Nittany Lions are inexperienced on the court — they are the youngest team in the Big Ten with an average age of 18.85.

Spearheading the locker room is Mingo, who became Penn State’s highest-rated recruit and chose Happy Valley to take the reins of the program. Mingo hasn’t lived up to the bill in every single facet, but still ranks as the team’s second-leading scorer behind Freddie Dilione V.

Frustrations have definitely mounted due to Penn State’s inability to close out games and its sudden run-in with the injury bug, but the Nittany Lions have managed to stay in tight games (except Michigan). Nevertheless, Rhoades is leaning on Mingo’s leadership and dedication as the team enters the season’s final stretch.

“The biggest thing with Kayden [Mingo] is he has such an awesome attitude, just, you know, keep learning from everything so you can continue to get better,” Rhoades said Tuesday. “So, you can keep doing the things that are working and the things that haven’t gone your way, you can learn from it.”

Despite how much Mingo’s improvement and attributes matter to the team’s identity, Penn State hasn’t been able to run from blown leads and poor late-game management. The Nittany Lions have now lost three Big Ten games by four points or less. If they managed to flip any of those decisions, they’d be 4-9 in conference play and perched around 13th in the standings.

Rhoades is focused on stacking days and improving little by little, but admitted his frustration with losing close affairs after close affairs. The Trojans felt like the catalyst of it all, but Rhoades said the mission remains the same.

“I really feel that our guys have handled the adversity of the last month, month and two weeks the right way. But you want to see results. I get it,” Rhoades said.

Penn State’s approach to its last few games has been different than the beginning of the season. Rhoades said at the beginning of the year that he wants the squad to fire threes like there’s no tomorrow. The Nittany Lions struggled from deep for a bit before hitting their stride. They went 8-for-29 against Michigan State, which is a game that they could have easily snagged to set momentum for conference play. Penn State’s volume went down notably against USC, where it only shot 18 treys, making six.

Penn State’s distancing from the three-point shot can be attributed to Eli Rice’s head injury and a simple lack of production. Rhoades said the team didn’t shoot as much because of Rice’s unavailability against the Trojans, but that the team is focused on another way of scoring.

“Our numbers when we do touch the paint, our points per possession is very good. I think that’s going to be a formula for us to give us a chance to be successful,” Rhoades said.

No matter what the Nittany Lions’ struggles have been so far this season, one fact remains: every single Big Ten team will make the tournament. If Penn State can string together a few wins, it’ll have some momentum heading in.

Penn State plays Washington and Oregon out west in its next two games, which are both in the bottom half of the conference standings. The Ducks are the only other Big Ten team sitting at 1-12 and are 8-16 overall.

The Nittany Lions flew into Seattle on Monday to get a jump-start on Husky preparation. Two wins through the week could create some space for the Nittany Lions. Rice should be back against the Huskies as well.

“That would be awesome, without a doubt. I’m not saying these guys deserve it, but they’re doing it the right way. I would love to see that to happen. You got to go earn it, though, you got to go get it,” Rhoades said.

2025-26 will at least automatically qualify as an improvement over 2024-25. Rhoades understands how the program’s lack of a good basketball product has alienated some fans, but a late-season revival can not only give Penn State breathing room in the standings but also give Rhoades some room in his coaching seat.

“Some things you can control. There’s other things out of your control. You just got to keep pushing forward all the time,” Rhoades said. “I got four years on my contract. I’m in here for the long haul. If you look at all that stuff, when I came to work for Pat Kraft, I committed to doing this, and I knew it was going to be really hard. Then it got really harder very quickly when the landscape of college basketball changed, and especially how they’re doing business in the Big Ten. I know that. And there’s not great tradition here, and we got to continue building support and do that.”

Rhoades said he wakes up every morning and immediately thinks about how he can improve Penn State’s basketball program. If he wants to avoid two consecutive years of Big Ten Tournament mishaps, he has to lock the team and not let the year’s frustrations damage the young team’s psyche. Rice will be back against Washington, and Ivan Jurić and Tibor Mirtić are day-to-day. The Nittany Lions are getting healthier. The late push starts in Seattle.