BREAKING: Penn State guard Kanye Clary dismissed from program
Meeting with the media for the first time since a Saturday thrashing at Nebraska, Penn State basketball’s third consecutive loss, head coach Mike Rhoades delivered more disappointing news for the program on Monday afternoon. Convening for his weekly press conference, Rhoades announced that Kanye Clary, sophomore guard and the program’s leading scorer for the 2023-24 season, has been dismissed from the program.
“Kanye is no longer with the team. Coach’s decision. We’re going to keep moving forward on the guys we got, the task at hand,” said Rhoades. “It came to a point where we’re at that I made the decision as the head coach to move on. I’ll leave it at that.”
Asked to elaborate on the decision, Rhoades did not specify the reasons for Clary’s dismissal from Penn State.
The news comes in the aftermath of a trip to Lincoln, Neb., that Clary didn’t make with Penn State. Though not providing specifics regarding Clary’s absence for the most recent game, the scoring guard had struggled to regain his footing with the team in the aftermath of a second-half concussion sustained in the final minutes of the Nittany Lions’ 83-74 loss to Minnesota on Jan. 27 at the Bryce Jordan Center.
Subsequently missing Penn State’s road wins at Rutgers and at Indiana, Clary’s return to action against Iowa on Feb. 8 marked a significant drop-off from his prior performances. Scoring eight points over 18 minutes, Clary came off the bench for the first time all season. Then, he followed it with a zero point effort in 14 minutes in a loss at Northwestern on Feb. 11.
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“He was out for a while. And then we’re playing different lineups. We’re playing some different lineups and that’s affecting his time in certain scenarios. That’s coach’s decisions and moving things around and all that stuff,” Rhoades said on Feb. 12 at his weekly Penn State press conference. “We need him because he’s a talented player, but we also need him at his best. Some of the lineups we have are working. And that’s what you go with.”
The circumstances would only get worse for Clary at Penn State. Again coming off the bench in a lopsided loss to Michigan State at the BJC on Valentine’s Day, Clary delivered eight points over 23 minutes, including a start for the second half.
For his career as a Nittany Lion, Clary started 20 of 55 games played, averaging 9.1 points per game over 18.4 minutes while knocking down 45.1 percent of his shots from the floor.
