Penn State continues offseason rebuild, adding Aleksander Zecevic

The Penn State men’s basketball program continues to build out its roster ahead of the 2026-27 season. On Tuesday, that took another step for head coach Mike Rhoades and his staff with the addition of 6-foot-10 forward Aleksandar Zecevic.

Zecevic, a 20-year-old native of Serbia, comes to Penn State following a stint with Spain’s Bilbao Basket of Liga ACB. He was credited by Eurobasket.com with averaging 10.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 1.0 assists per game with the club’s U22 team.

The decision comes on the heels of a weekend commitment from Andy Gemao.

New-look Nittany Lions for 2026-27

Rhoades and his staff have completely transformed the Nittany Lions’ roster this offseason.

In total, Penn State saw nine players from last season’s roster enter the transfer portal, with a 10th departure coming through the graduation of senior forward Josh Reed. To replace those absences, the Nittany Lions have turned to a combination of the transfer portal and international recruiting to field a nearly completely new team.

At the forefront of that effort, big man Ivan Juric returns for his sophomore season as the lone scholarship carryover on the roster. He’s joined by experienced international players Roko Prkacin and Francois Wibaut.

From the transfer portal, Penn State has added five more players, led by point guard Jay Rodgers out of Central Connecticut State, with shooters Brant Byers and Robert Blums arriving from Miami (Ohio) and Davidson, respectively.

Big man Timothy Oboh joined the Nittany Lions following his sophomore season at Buffalo last year. Thomas Allard, a 6-foot-7 senior guard from Alabama Huntsville, rounds out the transfer additions.

Penn State shifts gears

The moves mark a purposeful attempt to reverse the dismal results of the 2025-26 campaign for the Nittany Lions.

Acknowledging his disappointment and frustration following a season in which Penn State fielded one of the least experienced teams in college basketball, Rhoades said after the campaign that the Nittany Lions would look to improve in that area.

“It was a really hard year for me. It was really hard. The world we live in now, you want to give yourself a chance. You want to give your team a chance to be successful. So it’s hard. The reality is when you’re really young in Power 4 basketball, you’re at a disadvantage. So we need to address that, and we need to get our young guys bigger, better, and badder and stronger,” he said. “That’s it. You’ve got to be old. You’ve got to be old because everybody else is. The best teams in our league and the best teams in the country are old and experienced. We’ve got to address some of that.

“I always reevaluate everything I do and what we do in the program, and I’ll do that again. I know that works. It’s been a tough stretch. This is a hard job, but it’s pretty awesome too, the Big Ten and trying to figure it out at the place where I am.”

Where things stand for Penn State

Guards Jay Rodgers, Reggie Grodin, Roberts Blums, Brant Byers, Thomas Allard, Andy Gemao
Wings Roko Prkačin, François Wibaut, Chris Lotito
Bigs Ivan Juric, Timothy Oboh, Alexsander Zecevic

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