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Mike Rhoades explains philosophy on implementing consistent success: ‘I came here to win’
By Ethan Stone
Published:
Mike Rhoades comes to Penn State with a certain sense of familiarity.
The former VCU head coach grew up in Pennsylvania and takes it as a great honor to represent the Nittany Lions moving forward into their next chapter, as he told reporters at B1G Media Days Tuesday morning in Minneapolis.
While at the podium, Rhoades was asked what he believes it will take for Penn State to see consistent success, opposed to off and on NCAAT berths as has been standard in the past with Nittany Lions basketball.
He mentioned change, hammering home commitment in the process. He reiterated that he came to Penn State to win, but everyone is going to have to be on board for that to come to fruition.
Here’s his full answer:
“It’s going to take changes. It’s going to take a huge commitment. It’s going to be the belief that we can do this,” Rhoades said. “Especially on the days when you get beat or the days it becomes really hard or some things don’t go your way, but that’s how you build something successful. To sustain it, you have to have people on board on the toughest days. I think we have the people that want to be a part of building this thing to make it a huge winner.”
“So I came here to win,” he continued. “I came here to try to win big and doing it the right way with great student-athletes, but people that want to play basketball and guys that want to play basketball at Penn State, and I believe we’ve gotten off to a good start on that.”
Rhoades saw plenty of success at VCU, taking the Rams to 3 NCAAT appearances across his 6 seasons in Richmond. For a program like VCU, that’s impressive.
The Rams flourished defensively under Rhoades, who ran one of the better defensive programs at the high-major level across his past 6 years with VCU. He’ll take that philosophy to Penn State, a roster that has had to work a lot through the transfer portal following the departure of Micah Shrewsberry to Notre Dame last offseason.
Penn State tips off its 2023-24 campaign – as well as the Mike Rhoades era – on November 6 against Delaware State.
Ethan Stone was an editor for his student newspaper at the University of Tennessee and is now a News Manager for Saturday Tradition.