Penn State basketball improves course with transfer class strategy
As Penn State head coach Mike Rhoades recalled, his first two months with the program were a whirlwind. First leading the Nittany Lions last spring, with a total of 10 players turning over from the team he inherited, the ensuing mad dash to construct a team wasn’t a matter of choice.
Rather, it was a necessity.
“We were down to three guys, so I had no choice,” Rhoades told reporters. “We just jumped right in. Number one was not to panic. Make sure we found guys that fit me, fit our staff, fit our program, and what we were trying to do.
“We didn’t want to make any mistakes. We were very picky in the transfer portal. And we got 10 players in 59 days. So yes, we were in the transfer portal pretty intensely.”
With a full year at Penn State under their belts, Rhoades and his staff did not face the same obstacle this spring.
Penn State chooses transfer strategy
Though eight players exited the program following Rhoades’ debut season, three players exhausted their eligibility and another five transferred out, Penn State procured a four-man recruiting Class of 2024. Welcoming an influx of young talent that would help offset those losses, the class was ranked among the top 25 in the country according to some recruiting services. Combined with a roster that returned starters Ace Baldwin, Nick Kern, Zach Hicks, Puff Johnson, and D’Marco Dunn, the core of the Nittany Lions’ next team also remained intact.
Accordingly, Penn State could craft a focused approach to the transfer portal this spring. Over just 26 days, the Nittany Lions did exactly that.
Welcoming five transfers to campus for official visits, the program landed the verbal commitments of four of them. In the process, Penn State bolstered its depth and size for the 2024-25 campaign, while spreading out its scholarship distribution by class, to help shape its future.
Here is a look at the Nittany Lions’ transfer portal haul and their potential impact on the program this season and beyond:
Penn State hoops portal overview
Kachi Nzeh
Penn State basketball spent the first week of the transfer portal seeing space open for its 2024-25 campaign with a series of four departures. Already losing center Qudus Wahab to eligibility, and forwards Favour Aire and Demetrius Lilley to the transfer portal, the Nittany Lions spent the second week working to replenish their size.
Kachi Nzeh, listed at 6-foot-8, 230 pounds after one season at Xavier, was the first transfer to aid in those efforts. He has three seasons of eligibility remaining after spending his freshman debut with the Musketeers.
This past season, he started four of 19 games played, averaging 9.9 minutes per outing, posting 2.5 points and 2.5 rebounds, and connecting on 18-of-30 shots from the floor.
Indicative of his rise through the back half of the schedule, though, Nzeh’s role grew considerably down the stretch. Beginning with a breakout of 20 minutes played at Seton Hall on Feb. 14, Nzeh averaged 18.5 minutes in eight of Xavier’s next 10 games to close the season. Among those performances, he scored a season-high 13 points with six rebounds against Georgetown on March 2 and had another six points and five boards against Georgia in the first round of the NIT.
A product of the George School during his recruitment, Nzeh was a target of Rhoades’ staff while still at VCU. There, he was an all-state selection coached by former Penn State star guard Ben Luber.
Nzeh is physical, plays through contact, and has a high motor that Penn State needed. Riding Wahab this season, the Nittany Lions had some physicality in the paint but lacked size in rebounding through the year. That came to fruition through a rebounding differential that proved problematic against nonconference and Big Ten opponents alike.
For the season, Penn State finished 324th of 351 teams in rebounding. The Nittany Lions were -4.6 on the boards overall. And, against Big Ten opponents only, they were -5.2, dead last in the conference.
Nzeh isn’t a replacement for Wahab at center. However, he is a power forward who is expected to help Penn State’s rebounding with substantial minutes.
Yanic Konan Niederhauser
Yanic Konan Niederhauser, a 6-foot-11, stretch forward from Northern Illinois, is effectively the Nittany Lions’ replacement for Wahab. The second of the program’s spring transfer visitors, traveling to campus just days after Nzeh’s visit, highlighted his priority.
A junior with two seasons spent with the Huskies, he has two seasons of playing eligibility and a redshirt year available.
In his two seasons with Northern Illinois, the Swiss-born Niederhauser appeared in 47 games, starting 26 of his 27 played during the 2023-24 campaign. Averaging 19.6 minutes for the Huskies, he finished with 7.3 points and 4.4 rebounds. Key to Penn State’s interest, he also knocked down 7 of 24 3-point attempts last season (29.2 percent) while helping to space the floor. And, maybe more importantly, he also served as a rim protector on the defensive end of the court. He notched at least one block in all but five games, finishing with 57 for the season.
Eli Rice
Eli Rice, a 6-foot-8, 213-pound wing who spent his first season at Nebraska, was the third transfer to commit to the Nittany Lions this offseason.
He entered the transfer portal following one season at Nebraska. In it, he logged 4.2 points and 1.6 rebounds in 9.8 minutes over 17 games. Originally committing to the Cornhuskers out of IMG Academy, Rice carried three-star status with the No. 270 overall national ranking in the Class of 2023.
Like Nzeh, he was also pursued heavily by Rhoades and his VCU coaching staff before taking the Penn State job. So, upon Rice’s entering the transfer portal on March 25, the Nittany Lions coaching staff soon re-established a connection and built the relationship from there.
“They’ve always seen my potential and what I can do. And they know that my season in Nebraska last year, that wasn’t a representation of how good I am and what I can do,” said Rice. “Once I hit the portal, they were one of the first teams to call because they know. They’ve seen me grow up and my development. They know firsthand I didn’t get to show half of what I could do.”
He described himself as versatile as a three-level scorer and an efficient scorer. Rice can also make plays and create for teammates offensively. He also rebounds and defends, and has Big Ten experience valued by Penn State’s staff.
Freddie Dilione
A former On3 four-star shooting guard in the Class of 2022, ranked No. 44 nationally, Freddie Dilione spent his first season of college ball playing for Tennessee. On April 24, Dilione announced he’d continue his career at Penn State.
For Penn State basketball, the relationship with Dilione went back to his junior season at Word of God Christian Academy in Fayetteville, N.C. Then recruiting the dynamic guard for VCU, the Nittany Lion staff lost out to the Volunteers, who welcomed Dilione in for a redshirt on the back half of the 2022-23 season. But, what Dilione initially expected in his time with head coach Rick Barnes wasn’t what transpired. Due to a slew of personnel surprises, the opportunities for Dilione were diminished right out of the gates.
Last season, Dilione saw action in 18 games at Tennessee. He averaged 1.7 points and 0.8 assists over 5.2 minutes per game. In the time surrounding Dilione’s setback, though, VolQuest reporter Grant Ramey described a player who has multiple tools.
“I love Freddie Dilione’s upside and I think Penn State fans will as well,” said Ramey. “He’s extremely talented on the offensive end. He can create his own shot, can score it at all three levels, and can play on the ball or off. And, he has the needed confidence to do all of the above.”
A capable ball-handler, even if not a strength at present, Dilione’s addition provides Penn State much-needed depth as an “in a pinch” point guard behind Ace Baldwin and true freshman Jahvin Carter coming into the 2024-25 season.
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