Penn State basketball picks up portal pledge from point guard RayQuawndis Mitchell
Penn State basketball has landed another transfer portal commitment. Former All-Summit League point guard RayQuawndis Mitchell picked the Nittany Lions on Wednesday over Arkansas, Oklahoma State, and BYU.
“Finding a family was very important to me, and talking to Coach Rhoades and the staff at Penn State, I felt like I knew them,” Mitchell told The Portal Report. “I’m excited to get over there and get to work.”
“They’re going to have me in the backcourt with Ace [Baldwin].”
Mitchell, who checks in at 6-foot-5, shined at the University of Missouri-Kansas City last fall. He was a second-team all-conference selection and All-Newcomers team member after leading the Kangaroos with 17.3 points per game. That mark was fifth-best in UMKC’s league. The Blaine, Minn., native was also sixth in the Summit in both three point field goals made (79) and average threes per game (2.5.). His 34.5 field goal percentage ranked 10th, and his 83.5 percent free throw percentage eighth.
Penn State will be Mitchell’s fifth college hoops home. Besides UKMC, he has also played at Idaho, Otero junior college, and the University of Illinois Chicago. He is the No. 212 player in the On3 transfer portal rankings.
Mitchell is the latest Penn State portal win
First-year head coach Mike Rhoades was always going to have to use the NCAA transfer portal to his advantage when rebuilding the Penn State roster. So far, seven players who played elsewhere a year ago have picked the Lions. Two of them played for Rhoades at Virginia Commonwealth last season. The rest played elsewhere. However, a handful of players also left the program via the portal after Micah Shrewsberry left for Notre Dame. And, Class of 2023 commits ended up elsewhere, as well.
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Thus, the new leader of the Lions and his staff had to be diligent and efficient in looking for options to fill out their initial roster in State College. Penn State basketball portal pickups to date include reigning A10 Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year Ace Baldwin, his VCU teammate Nick Kern, Zach Hicks from Temple, Puff Johnson from North Carolina, Qudus Wahab from Georgetown, and Leo O’Boyle from Lafayette.
At his introductory news conference, Rhoades, who is a Pennsylvania native, talked about how he would build his program. Portal additions would be part of it. But, there is more to it then simply mixing and matching pieces in the spring to get ready for the winter.
“We want to build something bold, different and aggressive, and not be afraid,” Rhoades said. “Every day, we’re gonna go to work. We will be blue-collar. We will have dirt on our hands. And we’ll be damn proud of it. That’s who we are around here. That’s who our basketball program is going to become.”
