Penn State Basketball: 12 candidates to replace Micah Shrewsberry as head coach

Mike Rhoades

This list is purely alphabetical, but the next three names on the list are all current head coaches in the A-10, and it’s fitting that we’ll be looking at coaches in this conference. Many consider the A-10 as one of the very best mid-major conference and it seems fitting to be a feeding ground for a program like Penn State, who sit right in the footprint of that conference. This name would certainly fit based on his career to this point.

Rhoades played D3 basketball in the state of Pennsylvania and was a successful D3 head coach at Randolph-Macon. His first D1 experience came on Shaka Smart’s VCU staff, where he helped lead the Rams to that unexpected Final Four run as an assistant in 2011. Rhoades began his head coaching career with a solid three-year run at Rice before returning to VCU as head coach in 2017. There have been ups and downs these last six years, but he just took the Rams to a third NCAA Tournament and an A-10 Tournament title.

VCU’s last four head coaches have left for power conference coaching jobs and Rhoades certainly looks ready for the next level after his recent success. He’s a solid recruiter who knows life in Pennsylvania and his work in the A-10 means he’d be making less of a jump up than some of the other names on this list. This should be one of Penn State’s top candidates if they want to keep their basketball program relevant.