Report: Temple hiring former Penn State assistant Adam Fisher as next head coach

Temple has tabbed Penn State assistant Adam Fisher to be the next men’s head basketball coach, according to Jon Rothstein. He is a 2006 Penn State graduate.

Fisher, who’s title at Penn State was associate head coach, got floated as a potential replacement for Micah Shrewsberry when the former Nittany Lions head coach took the Notre Dame job. Instead, Penn State went another direction and hired Mike Rhoades from VCU.

The terms of the deal between Temple and its new head coach are not yet known.

Prior to joining the Penn State staff in 2021, Fisher was a long time assistant with Miami and head coach Jim Larrañaga.

Fisher left for Temple just hours after Penn State hired a new coach

Rhoades, who was hired by Penn State hours before the news broke that Fisher is leaving, released a statement via the Penn State basketball Twitter account on Wednesday.

“It’s with great honor and excitement to be Penn State’s Peter and Ann Tombros endowed men’s basketball head coach. I would like to thank Dr. Bendapudi, Pat Kraft, and Michael Wade Smith for their faith in me and the opportunity to lead this great program. We will be bold, different, and aggressive moving our program forward. We will play with great energy and excitement while always being relentless in our pursuit of making this basketball family into something special. I can’t wait to get to work,” Rhoades wrote in his statement.

Rhoades just finished his sixth season as VCU’s head coach. He made the NCAA Tournament in three of those six seasons, including this past one. The 2022-23 Rams team finished with a 27–8 record and 15-3 mark in the Atlantic-10 Confernece. The team won both the regular season and tournament titles.

Over his six years at the school, Rhoades has a 129-61 record. He never had an overall losing record and just once had a losing conference record.

On Wednesday, more details came out regarding Rhoades’ contract.

Rhoades signed a seven-year contract worth $3.4 million per year to start, according to the university. Each year, he’ll receive a $100,000 raise, taking him up to $4 million per year by the final year of the deal.

In addition, Rhoades’ buyout is $15 million for his first year and will drop by $3 million each year. After the fifth season — in which the buyout is $3 million — it will decrease to $1.5 million before becoming $0 after the contract runs out in 2030.

As far as incentives go, Rhoades could make up to $1.075 million in bonus. That includes $150,000 if he leads Penn State to at least a share of the Big Ten championship and $50,000 if he wins Big Ten Coach of the Year. In addition, an NCAA Tournament appearance would earn him $100,000 and he’d secure $75,000 for each win in the big dance.