Penn State's Basketball Reason Finally Looks Bright for Mike Rhoades' Reason

Last year's season for Penn State basketball was just absolutely inexcusable. There's no other way to put it, as it was disappointing on all fronts. If head coach Mike Rhoades said anything different, there'd be no chance that he has a job moving forward. 

I'm of the belief that Rhoades probably shouldn't have gotten another year, but I also think he's the right man to figure things out at Happy Valley, if that makes sense. At the end of the day, he's a really good head coach, and in this era of college basketball, he simply just needs the right tools to win at the Big Ten level. It's almost impossible to get upset with a coach nowadays if the program and school aren't giving him the necessary funds to compete at the highest level. That seems to be a problem at Penn State, though Rhoades also admitted he needed to improve in other areas and recently spoke about it with 247 Sports.

"It'll be a lot different," Rhoades said. "This is sort of the landscape of college basketball, and you know you've got to move with it. I think we'll be much different. We'll have Big Ten size. We'll be long and athletic throughout the roster. I like our skill level. Now, you've got to put it together on the court come November. But I do like the pieces we have.

"We got older," he added. "In today's landscape, you've gotta be older to give yourself a chance, and we've done that."

The international part of everything Penn State is looking to do probably brings the most intrigue out of anything at this level. With international players now being able to come over and have multiple years of eligibility, even after playing professional basketball in other countries, that's definitely the way to go. Penn State seems to be taking that route, though Rhoades said that he's still working through a lot of that stuff and he can't really comment on it just yet.

"We're working through that stuff with the international aspect of it all, and you know, can't comment on that yet," he said. "But we're working on that. When all that stuff gets finalized, then within the rules, I can comment on all that stuff. So excited — excited about the group we're putting together. We just got to … follow the rules."