Penn State’s Wednesday night win over Nebraska proves Mike Rhoades is right for the job

After an incredibly hot start, Mike Rhoades’s second season at Penn State quickly spiraled out of control. However, even in a lost year, Rhoades kept his Nittany Lions fighting, and on Wednesday night in Happy Valley, they ended a seven-game losing streak with a convincing 89-72 win over Nebraska. 

Now, at 4-12 in conference play and 14-13 overall, Penn State is still in last place in the Big Ten, and unlikely to qualify for the conference tournament with just four games remaining on the regular season schedule. Yet, following an incredibly disappointing 75-73 home loss to Washington on Saturday at the Bryce Jordan Center, Rhoades managed to keep his veteran-laden roster, engaged. 

Many teams would have packed it in for the year after a gut-wrenching loss like the one the Nittany Lions suffered over the weekend to another Big Ten bottom-feeder. Yet, they quickly bounced back to take a 50-27 first-half lead over the Cornhuskers, who came in winners of five of their last six. Junior center Yanic Konan-Niederhauser, who dealt with midseason injuries, led the way with 19 points on 7-10 shooting while reigning Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year Ace Baldwin Jr. chipped in with six steals and eight assists. 

That outing for Baldwin came on the heels of some lackluster effort against the Huskies, which may have cost Penn State a crucial game. 

It’s unlikely that Penn State will ever be a two-sport powerhouse, belonging to the upper echelon of the 18-team conference in both football and basketball. The athletic department simply prioritizes other sports like wrestling and women’s volleyball, and rightfully so. Therefore, a requirement of the job that Rhoades took two years ago, leaving a mid-major powerhouse in VCU, is to build a team that will consistently compete, even when it falls on hard times. 

When you’re Penn State men’s basketball in an increasingly competitive Big Ten conference, there are going to be five, six, and even seven-game losing streaks, so the program needs a coach who knows how to stop that snowball rolling downhill from turning into a full-blown avalanche. Yes, Year 2 of the Rhoades era is a disaster, but the team is still fighting, and with the highest-rated recruit in the program’s history, Kayden Mingo, on the way next year Rhoades has earned Year 3 and beyond. 

Maybe someday long losing streaks will no longer be the expectation for Penn State basketball, and maybe Rhoades will be the person to set that new standard. For now, he’s proven himself capable of bouncing back from them, and that’s good enough.