Not much was expected of the Penn State Nittany Lions men's basketball team in this week's Big Ten tournament at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois, and suffice it to say that those expectations were met with precision.
Penn State finished the regular season in 18th out of 18 teams in the Big Ten standings, thanks to their abysmal 3-17 conference record. None of the three Big Ten teams they beat – Minnesota, Washington, and Iowa – finished the season with winning conference records, either.
The No. 18-seeded Nittany Lions opened up the tournament with a matchup against the No. 15-seeded Northwestern Wildcats, a team that clobbered them by 21 points during the regular season. While Penn State kept it close through the first half, Northwestern moved on with a 76-66 victory. Freshman forward Ivan Juric led the Nittany Lions with 22 points and six rebounds.
The Wildcats went on to upset the No. 10-seeded Indiana Hoosiers to set up a Thursday evening matchup against the No. 7-seeded Purdue Boilermakers. For what it's worth, Penn State lost to Indiana by 41 points during the regular season, although they did keep it close with an eight-point loss to Purdue.
Penn State's tournament exit sums up disastrous 2025-26 season
Penn State's 0.150 conference winning percentage (0.143 including the Big Ten tournament loss) was their worst since the 2012-2013 season, when they went 2-16 (0.111) in the Big Ten and also dropped their conference tournament opener.
Their overall record of 12-20 (0.375) was also their worst since that season, when they went 10-21 in the second season of the Pat Chambers era.
Penn State has not qualified for the NCAA tournament since 2023, which was Micah Shrewsberry's second and final season as the Nittany Lions' head coach before making the move to Notre Dame to replace longtime Fighting Irish head coach Mike Brey.
All things considered, the disastrous 2025-2026 season, and the fact that it ended exactly when fans figured it would, has led to questions about the future of head coach Mike Rhoades, who arrived in 2023 as Shrewsberry's replacement after spending six seasons with VCU.
Rhoades' overall record is 44-52 at Penn State with just one winning season, and he has never even reached a 0.500 winning percentage in conference play (18-42 overall). And this past season marked a new low in just about every metric.
The highlight of Penn State's season might very well have been the fact that they only lost by two points to the eventual Big Ten regular season champion – and likely No. 1 NCAA tournament seed – Michigan Wolverines, back in early January at the Bryce Jordan Center.
Although Chambers did not lead the Nittany Lions to the NCAA tournament during his nine seasons in Happy Valley, after they had qualified in their final season under Ed DeChellis before he left for Navy in 2011, Penn State was on course to qualify as a No. 6 seed in 2020 before COVID-19-related restrictions resulted in the full cancelation of the tournament.
And with Pat Kraft now as Penn State's athletic director, Rhoades' seat is far from safe.
Kraft arrived at Penn State from Boston College in 2022, and he has already made double-digit head coaching changes across the athletic department.
Three of those changes, all directly related to underperformance and unmet expectations, have been made over the past five months alone, as he has shown that mediocrity is no longer acceptable in State College, regardless of the sport.
The highest profile change came in October, when James Franklin was fired in the middle of his 12th season as the football head coach following an 0-3 start in Big Ten play, after the team started the year as one of the preseason national championship favorites following a run to the College Football Playoff semifinals in 2024-25. He has since been replaced by former Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell.
Lisa Bervinchak Love's contract was not renewed after her third season as the field hockey head coach, which was the team's second consecutive season missing out on the postseason after having qualified for 48 straight years from 1976 to 2023. She has since been replaced by former Saint Joseph's head coach Hannah Prince.
And most recently, Carolyn Krieger was fired just days after her seventh season as the women's basketball team's head coach came to an end, having failed to record a single winning season in Big Ten play during those seven years.
Yet aside from Franklin's 0-3 start in Big Ten play, Rhoades' 3-17 conference record was worse than the Big Ten records of any of those now-former Penn State head coaches this past season. With very little reason for optimism surrounding the program, can Kraft justify breaking from what has become his norm and not making another leadership change?