Ace Baldwin Jr. is gone. So are Puff Johnson, D’Marco Dunn, Zach Hicks, Nick Kern Jr. and Jahvin Carter. There’s no question Penn State men’s basketball will be active in the transfer portal. It’s a must entering the third season under Mike Rhoades, who will look to add instant star power to what currently stands as a widely inexperienced roster.
Micah Shrewsberry once struck transfer portal gold by adding Jalen Pickett and Andrew Funk, who helped lead the Nittany Lions to their last NCAA Tournament appearance two seasons ago. And Rhoades, who has already excelled — at times — on the transfer recruiting trail, will need to find a boost comparable to the ones Shrewsberry inherited in 2021 and 2022.
What is Penn State looking for?
“We need size and girth. The one thing that I had to learn even more is the level of size, one through five. Returning players got to put on a body of armor that can win games in the Big Ten,” Rhoades said on Wednesday. “But we also got to go out and recruit a body of armor — guys with size and girth. All positions. I think that’s really important.”
Baldwin stood only 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds, but he embodied the “body of armor” play style better than maybe any Penn State player in recent years, winning back-to-back Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year awards. And with Johnson and Hicks departing, pure length on the wings and in the frontcourt is a must.
But there’s another concern that could even outweigh size, especially considering the expected return of center Yanic Konan Niederhauser. With Hicks, Dunn, Carter, Baldwin and Johnson all gone, the Nittany Lions are no longer set to return a player from this past season’s roster who averaged above a 30% clip from 3-point range.
“We always want skill level,” Rhoades said, “but I do believe the shooting part of it, we want to make sure we’re getting guys that can shoot the ball at a high clip, for sure.”
As a team, Penn State made just 222 shots from beyond the arc last season, which ranked No. 13 out of 18 teams in the Big Ten. The last time the Nittany Lions qualified for the NCAA Tournament in 2023, they led the conference by a wide margin, knocking down 385 long-range attempts. The second-most in the Big Ten that year was 276 by Wisconsin.
It can only help to add consistent shooters, especially with a dominant presence to account for in the paint. There’s no denying it now. Niederhauser, a 7-footer who averaged 12.9 points, 6.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks after transferring from Northern Illinois last offseason, is the core of Rhoades’ unit. He’s someone Rhoades can build around, that is if he can keep him around.
Niederhauser has the size Rhoades is looking for more of, and he should only improve with another year of Big Ten experience. But, in the modern age of college athletics, talented players on underperforming teams can be poached. And Niederhauser, more than any other Nittany Lion, is likely to garner interest from other programs.
Rhoades’ transfer outlook isn’t constricted solely by those on the open market, but also those on his roster, like Niederhauser, who he simply can’t afford to lose.
“At this time of the year, it’s just not recruiting guys that are out there, high school kids and kids in the portal. It’s having great conversations with your players on making sure, as you move forward, everybody’s on the same page, without a doubt,” Rhoades said. “When you have good players, it’s a free-for-all. That’s just how it is. But you gotta control what you can control.”
There’s another avenue Rhoades could explore outside of the traditional transfer portal, as well. The international market has, in recent years, grown in popularity. It’s provided programs with athletes rich in experience, often at the professional level. Penn State dipped into this market last year, signing Hudson Ward out of Canada, and could turn that way again.
A handful of past and current star players at the college level have gone this route: Franz Wagner to Michigan in 2019, Benedict Mathurin to Arizona in 2020 and Kasparas Jakucionis to Illinois last offseason. The next great international player could be out there now, and Rhoades is open to searching. All cards are on the table.
“We’re recruiting all over the world. I think the landscape of college athletics and college athletic recruiting, you have to be open to everything: high school kids, the portal and, of course, international,” Rhoades said. “And we’ve recruited international before. I have guys on our staff that have done it and have made those many trips all over the world to do that. I think that’s very important to us.”
