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Year One of the Mike Rhoades Era at Penn State wrapped up on Thursday in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament, when a potentially game-winning 3-pointer by Puff Johnson failed to connect, leaving the Nittany Lions two points short of an Indiana team they’d beaten twice during the regular season. The loss left Penn State at 16-17 for the year, with 10 of those victories coming against conference opponents.
In the most basic sense, it was a step back from the previous season, when the Micah Shrewsberry- and Jalen Pickett-led Nittany Lions caught fire down the stretch and advanced to the Round of 32 of the NCAA Tournament. In the more nuanced and perhaps more important senses, it was an encouraging start to the next chapter of program history after Shrewsberry had metaphorically set fire to the previous chapter when he bolted for Notre Dame shortly after the season.
Rhoades was left with just three returning scholarship players — Kanye Clary, Demetrius Lilley and Jameel Brown — who had accounted for 5% of the team’s minutes played and 5% of its scoring in 2022-23. Those players totaled 17% of the minutes and 22% of the scoring this season, numbers that dropped significantly when Clary left/was shown the door in February (more on this in a bit). Shrewsberry also took the entirety of Penn State’s Class of 2023 with him, leaving the transfer portal as Rhoades’ lone option to fill out the roster, on incredibly short notice.
