City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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PHILADELPHIA — Mike Rhoades has been around for a while. The second-year Penn State head coach came to Happy Valley from VCU. Before that, Rice. Before that, Randolph-Macon College. He knows building programs means talent, and that Philadelphia has one of the nation’s deepest talent pools.

So, the Wells Fargo Center may have looked like a cavernous pit on Saturday afternoon, with a spattering of a blue-and-white clad patrons on one side, opposed to a healthy handful of blue and gold on the other, but it looked like a pot of gold for Rhoades.

He made his point. He wants to win Philadelphia. Coming to Philly and beating Philly programs is hugely helpful, like Saturday’s 75-64 Nittany Lions’ victory before 1,362 over Zach Spiker’s stubborn Drexel Dragons (8-5).

Penn State is 10-2 this season. The Nittany Lions did not win their 10th game last season until two months in, beating Rutgers on January 21, 2024. Rhoades has made inroads gathering a Philly brain trust, with assistant coaches like Joe Martelli, the son of legendary St. Joe’s coach Phil Martelli, South Jersey Pitman star and former Rowan coach Joe Crispin, and former Collingswood and Arcadia coach Pat Dorney as Penn State’s Director of Basketball Operations.

Rhoades is doing it by garnering Philadelphia-area talent like 6-foot-8 senior forward Zach Hicks, the former Camden Catholic standout and Temple Owl. Hicks finished with eight points, though he had two key steals during a critical juncture in the game.

In the end, the Dragons, who saw their three-game winning streak come to an end, could not deal with possible future pro Nittany Lions’ 7-foot junior Yanic Konan Niederhauser, who finished with a game-high 18 points on 7-of-13 shooting, with six rebounds, three blocked shots and two steals.

On Saturday, Rhoades was not only going up against the Dragons, he was faced with the behemoths of his own Penn State football, which was playing at the same time in the NCAA college football playoffs, hosting SMU in Happy Valley.

In Rhoades’ first season at Penn State, he guided the Nittany Lions to a 10-11 overall finish in 2023-24. He came over from VCU, taking over for Micah Shrewsberry, who left Happy Valley for Notre Dame.   

Over the last 24 years, the Nittany Lions have been to the NCAA Tournament three times and won four games tournament games, most recently in 2022-23, when Shrewsberry led them to a 23-14 finish and a NCAA tournament win at the very place they played on Saturday, the Wells Fargo, which resulted in a 76-59 victory over Texas A&M on March 16, 2023.

Rhoades wants to make these Philly stops and Big Dance appearances more consistent. He knows that will mean attracting prime Philly talent.

Gaining a Philly foothold means much because “I’m going to recruit tonight, and it’s better to go and recruit when you’re 10-2 than when you’re 9-3,” Rhoades said. “Zach (Hicks) is really close, so we have some guys from here, and Jimmy Martelli and Pat Dorney are on our staff, and we know everybody down here. We know there are great high school programs and great AAU programs down here. We went to get the best players to stay home, and the best players, so many of them are from Philadelphia.

“Come to Penn State, this fun style of play, at the highest level, on the biggest stage, knowing you are going to come back home, in front of your family and friends. It is a lot of fun to be able to recruit here in Philadelphia. And I always want our guys to play in cool arenas like this, that’s their aspiring goal is to get taste of that today.”

As for the game, the Nittany Lions did what they were supposed to do, beat the Dragons with superior skill and size. Penn State outscored Drexel 46-26 in the paint, and received a nice second-half boost from Ace Baldwin Jr., who scored 11 of his 15 points in the second half.

Nick Kern gave Penn State its first lead, 16-15, with 10:04 left in the first half on a driving layup. Niederhauser gave Penn State the lead for good, 18-17, on a second-chance jumper with 9:17 left in the half.        

By intermission, the Nittany Lions had built a 37-29 lead, behind 11 points each from Kern and Niederhauser.

After being down 51-38 with 15:08 left, the Dragons’ Yame Butler rebounded his own miss and suddenly Drexel was within 58-56 with 8:35 to play. But some turnovers and some shot-clock violations stung the Dragons, who were outscored 8-0 from 4:23 to 1:49, giving Penn State a 70-60 edge and sealing the victory for the Nittany Lions.

“I think we showed we could compete physically, athletically, with any team, I was proud of our guys,” Spiker said. “We had a little bit of a deficit and cut it down to two, and we had a missed layup and two turnovers, and I’m going to kick myself over that segment right there.

“I do think, despite not having a win, there were still some positives for us, and I would like to have that energy and approach, which I think we have had all 13 games. If we can have that over the next 18, hopefully we can make our university proud.”  

Spiker did receive one huge boost, getting 14 from Kevon Vanderhorst, 13 in the second from someone who was playing in only his third game.

“He was not playing because he was hurt,” Spiker said about the 6-foot-2 sophomore guard. “This is a guy who makes people around him better, whether it is in basketball or life. We knew this was possible and I was happy for him to have this game and boost his own confidence. He’s a nice shot in the arm.”

Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on BlueSky here.