Penn State won’t make Big Ten Tournament after Maryland loss — forcing page to turn to 2025-26
Ace Baldwin Jr. walked back and forth as the Penn State alma mater began to play in the Bryce Jordan Center Saturday afternoon. Eventually he joined his teammates in line as it continued to play, but stood with his hands on his knees.
And then he walked to the student section to give out fist bumps and autographs — with much of the energy that captivated the BJC crowd just minutes earlier now gone —and off the court for the final time as a Nittany Lion.
He and the Nittany Lions fell to Maryland Saturday afternoon, 68-64, and the loss brought what seemed inevitable. Penn State will not qualify for the Big Ten Tournament and will finish as one of the bottom three teams in the conference.
For a team littered with seniors like Baldwin, it was the final blow in a two-month span full of others that took the program from a potential NCAA Tournament team to one that fell short of nearly every expectation — and on Senior Day, no less.
“It stinks,” Rhoades said after the loss to Maryland. “But it’s reality. It doesn’t always go the way you want, but it keeps going. It’s disappointing. I’m disappointed. Our guys are, without a doubt. But you’ve got to go through it.
“We’ve got one week left as a team, with this group together. ... You’ve got to fight and figure it out.”
While it reached the inevitable conclusion, it surely doesn’t take any of the sting out of a season filled with hope at the outset. Athletic director Pat Kraft said in July that the program is going in to every season with the expectation of making the NCAA Tournament. This team fell woefully short of that mark to the point that it is set to finish below .500 and with a record similar to last year’s — when the group wasn’t expected to contend or make any waves.
There is no sugar coating how short the group fell in Rhoades’ second season as Penn State head coach. But Kraft did not waver in his support of his men’s basketball coach when asked about him during a press conference Monday.
“I’m more than ever confident of what he can do here,” Kraft said. “But we’re not looking short term. I want to build this so that it is a consistent team. And make no bones about it, the NCAA Tournament is the objective. He knows that. I would worry if he was talking to me about something else other than that. ... We’ll get there.”
And so now the page can turn, for fans, to the 2025-2026 season. The team will look drastically different then, with Baldwin, Nick Kern Jr., D’Marco Dunn, Zach Hicks and Puff Johnson all exhausting their eligibility when this season comes to its merciful end.
That means Rhoades will be tasked with building out a whole new roster, one that will likely lean on guard Freddie Dilione V and center Yanic Konan Niederhauser, if they choose to return. Because that’s the other side of this — when a season goes awry it can have an impact on future years, too. Some of the players slated to return to Penn State will have opportunities elsewhere if they decide to pursue them in the transfer portal. And in the current landscape of the sport, they will be made aware of those chances even if they never enter the portal.
That is something Rhoades will have to guard against if he wants to have some continuity with next year’s team.
“You have to have those conversations now all the time,” Rhoades said Thursday during his weekly media availability. “To me it’s having relationships with our players that go beyond basketball so you can have honest and open dialogue and talk. And so that’s an ongoing thing for me and our staff. It is what it is for everybody. We want to have awareness of that and we want to have those conversations. ... I’d be lying to you if I said it’s not a concern. It’s a concern for every coach in America — your roster, your team, your future roster. Without a doubt.”
But that’s where things stand with Penn State men’s basketball. The program fell short again, but this time did so with a roster talented enough to get there. There were issues in close games — the Nittany Lions are 1-9 in games decided by six points or fewer this season — and problems with injuries, sure, but at the end of it all the team didn’t get the job done.
It’s only year two under Rhoades, and Kraft has expressed confidence in the long-term health of the program under his stewardship, but the head coach may be facing another hard reset with how many players he’s set to lose. He has a highly-touted class coming in, led by four-star guard Kayden Mingo, who is the highest-rated commit in program history, but he and the other freshmen will have to learn quickly. And so will any transfers.
That’s a lot to ask of any roster that’s put together so quickly, which might lead to a transition year for the Nittany Lions.
And another year of waiting until next season for a fan base that’s faced that torment time after time.
