For Penn State basketball, the offseason will pose many challenges, and one of them is keeping some of its top players around. In the modern era of college basketball, where the transfer portal can kill rosters, keeping guys has become just as important as recruiting.
According to Tyler Calvaruso of 247Sports, that’s exactly where Penn State’s focus should be.
“Retention is the first step in winning the offseason. Penn State is aiming to keep several key pieces in State College, namely the freshman duo of Kayden Mingo and Ivan Juric. Mingo is at the center of Penn State's plan for the future after a freshman season in which he had a case to earn a place on the All-Big Ten freshman team with 13.7 points, 4.3 assists and just over two steals per game.
“Juric flashed his potential throughout the year and came a little bit more into his own on the back end of Big Ten play, giving the Nittany Lions a building block in the front court. The next step is scouring the transfer portal for talent that fits with Penn State's style of play on both ends of the floor. Josh Reed is the only member of the 2025-26 roster who has exhausted his eligibility, but there will be room to add key pieces in the portal when it opens April 7," he wrote.
Keeping Kayden Mingo on the roster should be the biggest priority for Penn State this offseason. Obviously, as we saw a season ago, the Nittany Lions will have to do a lot, but Mingo was one of the few players on the roster who showed any promise, and that's just the unfortunate reality of how the 2025-26 season unfolded.
However, as he also touched on, there's a side of the story here that shows Penn State absolutely has to cross the transfer portal this time around. If the program wants to improve, it'll start with getting older, something the program unfortunately didn't do correctly last time around.
Mike Rhoades has a lot to work on and will need some money to get the job done.