Penn State turns page on 2024-25, looking to future
The NCAA transfer portal window for men’s basketball won’t begin until Monday, March 24. Penn State is getting a head start on it, officially putting its 2024-25 season to rest on Sunday with its decision to forgo participation in any postseason opportunities.
“Penn State Basketball has removed itself from postseason consideration and will turn its full attention and focus on building for the 2025-26 season,” the program said in a provided statement.
The Nittany Lions aren’t alone. As of early Sunday evening, including a stretch before the selection of the full 68-team NCAA Tournament field, a number of other similarly positioned programs made the same decisions.
In the SEC, with two spots guaranteed to the NIT field, the secondary tournament will go without any. With the conference shattering former records for NCAA Tournament participation, sending 14 of 16 teams, the remaining two programs of South Carolina and LSU declined to take part.
In the Big Ten, after being left out of the NCAA Tournament field, Indiana cut off its potential participation in either the NIT or the newly formed Crown at the knees. Chris Collins told reporters following Northwestern’s Big Ten Tournament exit that his team was also calling it quits.
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Given the rapidly shifting landscape for the sport, what’s next for Penn State is a jump on what’s next. Dropping five seniors from the roster who have exhausted their eligibility, at least two scholarships are available to play with in the portal. Those opportunities would come with or without any movement into the portal from the Nittany Lions’ current roster of eight scholarships who have eligibility to return, should they so choose.
Meeting with reporters before the end of the season, Penn State head coach Mike Rhoades acknowledged the constant attentiveness required of knowing the plans of players on the roster.
“It’s important for every team in all of sports in college now and the way that the landscape is. Those are relationships, those are conversations,” said Rhoades. “It’s always there all year long. It’s always the hot topic at the end of any season in college athletics. And it’s the same for us, and the same for me, and we’ll jump right on it.”
With Penn State’s season finished, the Nittany Lions notched a 16-15 overall record, including a 10-1 mark in the nonconference, with a 6-14 mark against Big Ten competition. They finished 17th in the newly expaned 18-team conference and were not afforded an opportunity to compete in this past weekend’s tournament in Indianapolis.
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