UNIVERSITY PARK — Penn State Men’s Basketball Local Media Day was held on Wednesday, Oct. 15, when Head Coach Mike Rhoades for the first time this year spoke about this year’s team and the season coming up.
The players then followed up to talk about expectations, how they got to Penn State, and what they are excited for this season. Those players were Saša Ciani, Kayden Mingo, and Melih Tunca.
The two big takeaways from media day were how young this year’s team is and giving Kayden Mingo the keys to this team.
Eight of the 13 players on this roster are freshmen, and three of those freshmen come from international play. Ivan Jurić is from Zagreb, Croatia standing at 7’0. Next is Melih Tunca who is a 6’5 guard from Istanbul, Turkey. Lastly, Tibor Mirtič from Ljubljana, Slovenia is a 6’9 forward.
When Mike Rhoades was asked about the young players, he said, “When you have a lot of young guys, a lot of new guys, there’s overthinking initially, because they don’t want to do you wrong…. But I do think our style of play allows our guys to play off instincts and play the way they’ve been playing their whole life.”
Rhoades knows that this team is young and there will be learning points on the way, but he is there to work through them with this team.
“We’re the youngest team in the Big Ten and one of the youngest teams in the country,” Rhoades said.
The star freshman Penn State is bringing in this year is Kayden Mingo, who is the highest ranked recruit to ever commit to this program. According to 247sports, he was ranked 34th in the country and 2nd in New York, making him the highest-ranked commit.
Rhoades thinks highly of Mingo since the short time on campus and with him on the team, which led him to name Mingo a team captain as a freshman.
“(Mingo) comes from an impressive family, a winning basketball program in high school… high character young man on and off the court and thinks of his teammates before himself and for a college freshman, very mature.”
Penn State had its first game when the team traveled to Ohio to take on Dayton in an exhibition game on Sunday. The Nittany Lions lost with a final score of 78-62, where Mingo finished with 16 points, 4 assists, and 3 rebounds.
Penn State will have one more exhibition game on Oct. 26 where they will host Shippensburg. The season will start Nov. 3 when Penn State takes on Fairfield.
