2024-25 ITH Season Preview: Penn State Nittany Lions – Inside the Hall

With the college basketball season starting in early November, we will be examining the conference as a whole and Indiana’s roster over the next two months.

Today our team previews begin with Penn State.

Penn State had an up-and-down season in the first year of the Mike Rhoades era, going 16-17 overall and 9-11 in conference play.

The Nittany Lions swept Indiana in the regular season, but the Hoosiers avenged their loss with a win in the 2024 Big Ten tournament in Minneapolis.

Expectations for Penn State are modest as Rhoades prepares for a second season at University Park. Nittany Lions currently ranks 74th in Bart Torvik’s 2024-25 season projectionsLowest ranking among Big Ten teams.

The clear returnee is point guard Ace Baldwin Jr., one of the best two-way players in the league. The 6-foot-1-inch senior averaged 14.2 points, six assists, 2.7 rebounds and 2.7 steals in 35.9 minutes per game last season. His 3-point shooting percentage has dropped to 32.9 percent after shooting 41.3 percent (2021-22) and 34.2 percent (2022-23) in his previous two seasons at VCU.

Known for his defensive prowess, Baldwin finished last season with a 4.2% steal percentage, the 24th highest in the nation.

The Nittany Lions return four more key contributors — Nick Kern Jr., Zach Hicks, Puff Johnson and D’Marco Dunn — and all, like Baldwin, are entering their final season of eligibility.

Kern, a 6-foot-6-inch winger, started in 23 games last season, averaging 8.7 points, 3.9 rebounds, 1.5 assists and one steal in 24.9 minutes per game. Like Baldwin, Kern followed Rhoades out of VCU ahead of the 2023-24 season.

A 6-foot-8-inch forward, Hicks is a talented floor spacer who started in all 33 games for the Nittany Lions last season. Hicks made a team-high 67 three-pointers last season and shot 34.2 percent from long range.

Johnson, a 6-foot-8-inch forward, will use an additional year of eligibility granted by the COVID-19 pandemic after an up-and-down season at Penn State last season. He made 12 starts last season and averaged 7.3 points and 3.1 rebounds while shooting 33.3 percent on 3s.

Dunn is Penn State’s best returning 3-point shooter in percentage terms. The 6-foot-5-inch guard made 30-of-82 (36.6 percent) 3-pointers last season and averaged 6.8 points in 18.2 minutes per game.

Penn State has been active in the transfer portal and is adding four players who are expected to fit into the rotation immediately: Eli Rice (Nebraska), Kachi Nzeh (Xavier), Freddie Dilione (Tennessee) and Yanic Konan Niederhauser (Northern Illinois).

Dilione, the No. 41 player nationally in the 2022 class, played sparsely as a redshirt freshman at Tennessee last season. With no clear path to more minutes, he elected to enter the portal and slot in next to Baldwin in Penn State’s starting backfield.

Niederhauser, a 7-foot-7 Swiss native, showed promise as a sophomore at Northern Illinois last season. In 19.6 minutes per game for the Huskies, Niederhauser averaged 7.3 points, 4.4 rebounds and 2.1 blocks. He should be the starter at number five.

Rice, listed as a 6-foot-8-inch guard, and Nzeh, a 6-foot-8-inch forward, both have high-level experience. Rice played regularly at Nebraska last season before suffering a season-ending ankle injury. In 17 games for the Huskers, Rice averaged 4.2 points and 1.6 rebounds on 37 percent shooting on 3s. Nzeh, from Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, played in 19 games for the Musketeers last season, making four starts. Known as an athlete, Nzeh averaged 2.5 points and 2.5 rebounds and should compete for minutes as a reserve in the frontcourt.

Penn State also welcomes a four-man roster headlined by 6-foot-10-inch center Miles Goodman, the 108th-ranked player in the 2025 class according to the 247Composite. Goodman reportedly missed time with an injury in the late summer.

Penn State, which won nine Big Ten games last season, must address some of its key shortcomings to climb the league standings. The Nittany Lions were one of the worst rebounding teams in the Big Ten last season, ranking 12th in offensive rebounding percentage and 13th in defensive rebounding percentage.

Penn State’s aggressive defensive style was effective at times, as the Nittany Lions ranked second in the conference in defensive turnover percentage. However, at times, over-aggressiveness was costly. Penn State ranked 13th in the conference in opponent free throw percentage. And when it was outplayed defensively, there was little resistance at the rim. Big Ten opponents shot nearly 55 percent against the Nittany Lions, who ranked last in the league.

Conclusion: Penn State returned more than half of its points from last season and has one of the league’s best guards in Baldwin. The Nittany Lions’ ceiling will likely be determined by their revamped frontcourt with the additions of Niederhauser, Nzeh and Goodman. Defense in the paint and rebounding are two critical areas Penn State needs to clean up to avoid a bottom-three finish in the Big Ten and missing the conference tournament.

Quotable: “Maybe the best advantage we have right now. Five of our guys had a summer, had a season. Of course, Nick and Ace being around me for a couple of years helped. But now having a year under their belt here, it helped our new guys coming in and the comfort of having five guys at Penn State, being an athlete here at Penn State, but also being able to help the new guys and what they’re going to go through on the field, in the weight room, in the locker room, off the field.” – Rhoades told reporters this summer about the importance of having a strong core of returning players.

Posted to: 2024-25 Big Ten preview, Penn State Nittany Lions