Mike Rhoades (Penn State) our new guy in “Comparable 4”

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SelectionSunday

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Even though Rhoades will be in his first year at Penn State, let’s have him replace Micah Shrewsberry (off to Notre Dame). Let’s see how Rhoades does with the others having a 2-year head start.

Good luck to Shrewsberry. He did fantastic work in just 2 seasons.

Updated Through 2022-23 Season
These 3rd (Otzelberger, Smith, Johnson) and 1st (Rhoades) year coaches are listed in order of overall winning percentage since taking over their program prior to the 2021-22 or 2023-24 season.

1 TJ Otzelberger (Iowa State) -- 41-27 overall (60.3%), 27-27 vs. Power 6 (50%), NCAA Tournament Appearances/Record (2/2-2)

2 Craig Smith (Utah) -- 28-35 overall (44.4%), 16-32 vs. Power 6 (33.3%), no NCAA or NIT

3 Ben Johnson (Minnesota) -- 22-39 overall (36.1%), 9-38 vs. Power 6 (19.1%), no NCAA or NIT

4 Mike Rhoades (Penn State) — blank canvas

NEXT UPDATE: December 1, 2023
 


Spaulding!No! said:
Has Mike Rhoades been a college hc somewhere?
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Of course!

He was a head coach at D3 Randolph-Macon where he was 197-76 over 10 seasons.

He was next a head coach at Rice (47-52) for 3 seasons before going to VCU as an associate head coach. He then became the head coach at VCU for 6 seasons where he compiled a 129-61 record and reached the NCAA tournament in 3 of those seasons.
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Of course!

He was a head coach at D3 Randolph-Macon where he was 197-76 over 10 seasons.

He was next a head coach at Rice (47-52) for 3 seasons before going to VCU as an associate head coach. He then became the head coach at VCU for 6 seasons where he compiled a 129-61 record and reached the NCAA tournament in 3 of those seasons.
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Awww crap!
 

UpAndUnder43 said:
Of course!

He was a head coach at D3 Randolph-Macon where he was 197-76 over 10 seasons.

He was next a head coach at Rice (47-52) for 3 seasons before going to VCU as an associate head coach. He then became the head coach at VCU for 6 seasons where he compiled a 129-61 record and reached the NCAA tournament in 3 of those seasons.
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His ceiling is limited, PSU should have taken a chance on someone with minimal experience.
 



UpAndUnder43 said:
Of course!

He was a head coach at D3 Randolph-Macon where he was 197-76 over 10 seasons.

He was next a head coach at Rice (47-52) for 3 seasons before going to VCU as an associate head coach. He then became the head coach at VCU for 6 seasons where he compiled a 129-61 record and reached the NCAA tournament in 3 of those seasons.
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Yes, he has a good background of accomplishment but he has a tough assignment this season. He was able to get one of his VCU players to commit recently but that leaves him with only 3 scholarship players on the roster so far. I believe PSU's freshmen recruits de-committed so I don't think he has any incoming freshmen at this point either.
 

cjbfbp said:
Yes, he has a good background of accomplishment but he has a tough assignment this season. He was able to get one of his VCU players to commit recently but that leaves him with only 3 scholarship players on the roster so far. I believe PSU's freshmen recruits de-committed so I don't think he has any incoming freshmen at this point either.
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No doubt. I’d expect PSU to be pretty lousy this year unless he adds a few big portal pieces. I do like his background though. Truthfully the kind of resume I was hoping the gophers would target. No reason we can’t hire a similar basketball coach to Penn St. they are not exactly a blue blood.
 

goldengophers said:
His ceiling is limited, PSU should have taken a chance on someone with minimal experience.
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Ideally someone who would recruit the state well, impress the AAU coaches, blow the AD away in an interview, guarantee not to finish last, and be among the league leaders in high fives and butt slaps?
 



UpAndUnder43 said:
No doubt. I’d expect PSU to be pretty lousy this year unless he adds a few big portal pieces. I do like his background though. Truthfully the kind of resume I was hoping the gophers would target. No reason we can’t hire a similar basketball coach to Penn St. they are not exactly a blue blood.
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Yes, he would have been exactly the kind of coach who should have been hired at a Big Ten school. He's a PA native though (grew up a little over two hours east of State College) so PSU may have been a preferred landing spot for him.
 

cjbfbp said:
Yes, he would have been exactly the kind of coach who should have been hired at a Big Ten school. He's a PA native though (grew up a little over two hours east of State College) so PSU may have been a preferred landing spot for him.
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If I drive 2 hrs east of state college pa I am still in pa?
 

goldengophers said:
His ceiling is limited, PSU should have taken a chance on someone with minimal experience.
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I'm not challenging the value of experience, but it does have a cost. I read somewhere that Rhoades' starting contract pays him $3.4M/year. That probably puts him in the top 30 D1 head coaches, and it's about 175% of CBJ's salary ($1.95M, I believe, or somewhere around 65-70th). Not saying Rhoades hasn't earned it, not saying CBJ isn't already overpaid, and not saying I wouldn't rather have one of the allegedly Comparable Four or Five or Six. But an AD has to make a judgment about value, and I have to believe part of Coyle's thinking was that if CBJ works out, he has found a diamond in the rough; if CBJ doesn't succeed, at least the comparatively limited bank hasn't been broken. He may be proven wrong in the 4-5 years it takes to make a reasoned assessment. But some posters (maybe not you; I don't claim to know) seem to believe that Minnesota is some kind of blue blood steeped in the kind of winning tradition that attracts a proven up-and-comer, that the new coach could be promised anything more than the empty locker room of a low-P6 program, and/or that Coyle was at liberty to make his judgment without reference to other significant budgetary concerns. None of these conditions pertained to the judgment he made.
 






Captain Willard said:
I'm not challenging the value of experience, but it does have a cost. I read somewhere that Rhoades' starting contract pays him $3.4M/year. That probably puts him in the top 30 D1 head coaches, and it's about 175% of CBJ's salary ($1.95M, I believe, or somewhere around 65-70th). Not saying Rhoades hasn't earned it, not saying CBJ isn't already overpaid, and not saying I wouldn't rather have one of the allegedly Comparable Four or Five or Six. But an AD has to make a judgment about value, and I have to believe part of Coyle's thinking was that if CBJ works out, he has found a diamond in the rough; if CBJ doesn't succeed, at least the comparatively limited bank hasn't been broken. He may be proven wrong in the 4-5 years it takes to make a reasoned assessment. But some posters (maybe not you; I don't claim to know) seem to believe that Minnesota is some kind of blue blood steeped in the kind of winning tradition that attracts a proven up-and-comer, that the new coach could be promised anything more than the empty locker room of a low-P6 program, and/or that Coyle was at liberty to make his judgment without reference to other significant budgetary concerns. None of these conditions pertained to the judgment he made.
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My line of thinking is that if PSU can pay 3.4 million for a coach, why the hell can't we. They make the same amount in tv revenues that we do. I'd rather pay 4 million for a proven coach than 2 million for a coach who has done nothing and so far has done nothing.
 

Gophers7633 said:
My line of thinking is that if PSU can pay 3.4 million for a coach, why the hell can't we. They make the same amount in tv revenues that we do. I'd rather pay 4 million for a proven coach than 2 million for a coach who has done nothing and so far has done nothing.
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Well, you probably answered your own question. We're cheapskates, they're not, at least not this time. I suspect that going to the finals of the Big Ten tournament and going to the NCAA tournament and winning a game gave them a rare taste of success in the sport and they thought they might try to keep it going by hiring a proven and more expensive coach.

Prior to this season I posted here my belief that four Big Ten programs have demonstrated by their actions or lack thereof that they don't care that much about men's basketball: Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, and Minnesota. I guess I can remove one of those names from the list.
 

cjbfbp said:
Well, you probably answered your own question. We're cheapskates, they're not, at least not this time. I suspect that going to the finals of the Big Ten tournament and going to the NCAA tournament and winning a game gave them a rare taste of success in the sport and they thought they might try to keep it going by hiring a proven and more expensive coach.

Prior to this season I posted here my belief that four Big Ten programs have demonstrated by their actions or lack thereof that they don't care that much about men's basketball: Nebraska, Northwestern, Penn State, and Minnesota. I guess I can remove one of those names from the list.
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Guess we're reaping what we sow. We're paying like a shitty program, and certainly performing like it.
 

Tony Liebert just tweeted a too-early Big Ten standings prediction, and it has us 13th and PSU 14th. Rhoads will indeed be a perfect addition to this and comparison to Johnson. If he can coach them to anything other than last place and ahead of the Gophers in his first year... Put another way, if Johnson can't get out of last place over him and what's left of the Nittany Lions with a two- year head start...
 

Bad Gopher said:
Tony Liebert just tweeted a too-early Big Ten standings prediction, and it has us 13th and PSU 14th. Rhoads will indeed be a perfect addition to this and comparison to Johnson. If he can coach them to anything other than last place and ahead of the Gophers in his first year... Put another way, if Johnson can't get out of last place over him and what's left of the Nittany Lions with a two- year head start...
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I really don't understand the point of these way-too-early predictions that get put out. Predicting how teams are going to finish when rosters aren't even set just seems like a complete waste of time and I really don't know why people even bother with them.

That said, I don't think Johnson survives a 3rd straight last place finish. Will be interesting to see what kind of roster Rhodes can put together but he is certainly starting from a tough spot, similar to the one Johnson was in 2 years ago basically having to build the roster from scratch.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I really don't understand the point of these way-too-early predictions that get put out. Predicting how teams are going to finish when rosters aren't even set just seems like a complete waste of time and I really don't know why people even bother with them.

That said, I don't think Johnson survives a 3rd straight last place finish. Will be interesting to see what kind of roster Rhodes can put together but he is certainly starting from a tough spot, similar to the one Johnson was in 2 years ago basically having to build the roster from scratch.
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I actually see it as a nice snapshot of where things are at the moment. It'll be a good measuring stick of how well the teams--particularly these two--fill out their roster from this point forward and develop it over the off season.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I actually see it as a nice snapshot of where things are at the moment. It'll be a good measuring stick of how well the teams--particularly these two--fill out their roster from this point forward and develop it over the off season.
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Agree to disagree I guess. I know places need content so that is why all the preseason and way-too-early rankings get done but they are 99.9% garbage. Just filler content to get clicks and views knowing full well that they can be completely wrong and nobody will really care to go back and look.
 

MNVCGUY said:
Agree to disagree I guess. I know places need content so that is why all the preseason and way-too-early rankings get done but they are 99.9% garbage. Just filler content to get clicks and views knowing full well that they can be completely wrong and nobody will really care to go back and look.
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Sounds like a great gig.
 

Bad Gopher said:
I actually see it as a nice snapshot of where things are at the moment. It'll be a good measuring stick of how well the teams--particularly these two--fill out their roster from this point forward and develop it over the off season.
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Well, if our coach's team finishes behind a team that has 3 scholarship players on its roster and no incoming freshmen as of April 12th, then that's pretty much an open-and-shut case. Even 13th place would be close to that. Perhaps an 11th or 12th place, depending upon the actual record, might at least have some gray area.
 

cjbfbp said:
Well, if our coach's team finishes behind a team that has 3 scholarship players on its roster and no incoming freshmen as of April 12th, then that's pretty much an open-and-shut case. Even 13th place would be close to that. Perhaps an 11th or 12th place, depending upon the actual record, might at least have some gray area.
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Folks have been saying that, in order for Johnson to demonstrate sufficient progress, we need to get out of the bottom four. This roster isn't there yet and would have to be augmented considerably, filling the remaining openings, to get there.
 

Bad Gopher said:
Folks have been saying that, in order for Johnson to demonstrate sufficient progress, we need to get out of the bottom four. This roster isn't there yet and would have to be augmented considerably, filling the remaining openings, to get there.
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If by "folks" you mean a bunch of people who post here, my reaction is "Who cares?" Again, I think it depends upon the overall record. Technically, Wisconsin finished 12th but they had a 17-13 regular season record. They lost their first BT tournament game but went 3-1 in the NIT to finish 20-15. I'm sure Wisconsin fans thought that was a disappointing season but to us that should be considered a pretty fair season under the current state of the program.
 

cjbfbp said:
If by "folks" you mean a bunch of people who post here, my reaction is "Who cares?" Again, I think it depends upon the overall record. Technically, Wisconsin finished 12th but they had a 17-13 regular season record. They lost their first BT tournament game but went 3-1 in the NIT to finish 20-15. I'm sure Wisconsin fans thought that was a disappointing season but to us that should be considered a pretty fair season under the current state of the program.
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FWIW, I consider most folks on here to be pretty insightful, which is why I read these pages.

What you say is true, but last year was sort of the weird exception to the rule. Wisconsin played on Wednesday of the BTT but was in the NCAA conversation. If the Gophs do that next year, that'll obviously be a big leap forward from where we've been.
 

Bad Gopher said:
FWIW, I consider most folks on here to be pretty insightful, which is why I read these pages.

What you say is true, but last year was sort of the weird exception to the rule. Wisconsin played on Wednesday of the BTT but was in the NCAA conversation. If the Gophs do that next year, that'll obviously be a big leap forward from where we've been.
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Yes, it was unusual but it's certainly not impossible that the 11th or 12th team could have a winning record and possibly be NIT bound next season.

Yeah, this site has some insightful people. It also has its fair share of cranks, jerks, lazy knee-jerkers, and a few trolls too.
 


cjbfbp said:
Well, if our coach's team finishes behind a team that has 3 scholarship players on its roster and no incoming freshmen as of April 12th, then that's pretty much an open-and-shut case. Even 13th place would be close to that. Perhaps an 11th or 12th place, depending upon the actual record, might at least have some gray area.
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Play better, be fundamentally improved, especially on defense and be competitive most nights. Some wins will come. If it's 13th place or 9th place is really not the measure.
 

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