Penn State Basketball: Why Freddie Dilione is the most important team transfer for 2024-25

There’s little question that Penn State is known as a football school, though that hasn’t stopped the basketball program from having notable moments. That being said, the Nittany Lions aren’t regular contenders in the Big Ten and 2023’s breakthrough wasn’t exactly sustained. Last year was the first under new head coach Mike Rhoades and his first squad did a decent effort even while finishing below .500 on the year.

Rhoades came to Penn State from VCU and took his best player with him, as Ace Baldwin Jr. really excelled as a senior last season. He’s back for another season and he’s not the only one, with starting forward Zach Hicks and a slew of other talent returning. The Nittany Lions did shed a few important pieces, with center Qudus Wahab out of eligibility and Kanye Clary now down in the SEC.

In addition to a solid crop of freshmen, the Nittany Lions have added a few pieces using the Transfer Portal and we’ll touch briefly on some of them. Penn State landed Yanic Niederhauser, who showed promise as a sophomore forward at Northern Illinois. They also added a pair of freshmen who had limited opportunities last season in Eli Rice, a shooting guard from Nebraska, and former Xavier reserve center Kachi Nzeh.

A third addition matches that archtype in Freddie Dilione V, a former Top 100 prospect who’s coming off a redshirt freshman season as a reserve at Tennessee. Much like Niederhauser and Nzeh, Dilione hasn’t had many chances to prove himself, averaging just 1.7 points and 0.8 assists across 18 games for the Volunteers, but the excitement here is for the potential.

Penn State didn’t add established mid-major veterans, they instead opted for young pieces with raw talent, hoping to bring the best out of them. Dilione plays hard, shoots relatively well, and could develop into the Nittany Lions’ next great point guard once Baldwin is out of the picture. For now, he’s gotten a full offseason of development and could be in for a massive step forward as a sophomore.

Dilione slots behind the returning talent on the depth chart, but he could surprise people and should be the most talented of the new faces in town. He wasn’t a nationally-ranked prospect by accident, he’s explosive on offense, creative with shot selection, and can develop into a top notch point guard. Like we mentioned earlier, he plays hard and fast and fills a future need for this program.

Obviously, a raw talent like Dilione just might not develop or hit the stride that this program expects, but there’s no reason to get negative. There might not still be the talent here for Penn State to compete in a bigger, stronger Big Ten, but they’re putting the pieces together for the next good team, especially when the returning batch of talent graduates and moves on. Can Dilione take that big step forward and become a playmaker this season?