Star Penn State guard, Kayden Mingo, to enter transfer portal

The opening of the spring transfer portal in men’s basketball has already produced plenty of activity for the Penn State program. On Wednesday, that activity took on its most seismic significance yet during head coach Mike Rhoades’ tenure.

Kayden Mingo, the Nittany Lions’ true freshman point guard, has informed the program that he will enter the NCAA transfer portal.

In doing so, a critical piece of the program’s developmental aspirations instead becomes the highest-ranked prospect to leave in Penn State basketball history. Playing in 28 games this season and starting all of them, Mingo finished second on the team in scoring behind Freddie Dilione at 13.7 points per game, while leading the Nittany Lions in assists with 4.3 per game.

As a team, though, the results were less encouraging. Finishing with just three wins against 18 losses in Big Ten play, including a winless January, the Nittany Lions struggled to generate positives.

Despite missing four games due to injury at two separate points during the season, Mingo expressed an appreciation for the experience.

“I’m very grateful and very blessed for the whole season. I feel like God put me in a very good position with a lot of good people around me,” said Mingo following the Nittany Lions’ Big Ten Tournament loss to Northwestern on March 10. “Going into next season, I’m really looking forward to fixing things that I could do better to help the team win. Be back here and win more games. That’s the most important thing. Winning more games.”

Barring a change of heart and a decision to withdraw from the portal, those aspirations won’t come to fruition at Penn State.

Instead, the Nittany Lions will move forward with a nearly entirely new backcourt. Already without Freddie Dilione, Eli Rice, and Melih Tunca, Mingo’s departure leaves Dominick Stewart as the only scholarship guard yet to enter the transfer portal.

And prior to this development, Rhoades and his staff had indicated a future built around Mingo and the experience he established – both positively and negatively – this season.

“Experience is your greatest teacher in life. When you’re a freshman, a real freshman, 18 years old, and you get thrown in the fire of playing at this level and in the Big Ten when everybody’s bigger, older, stronger, you learn a lot. Unfortunately, you learn a lot through failure,” said Rhoades. “Kayden is an example and some other guys on the team too that their spirit of coming back every day to work and stuff like that, we can build on that without a doubt, led by him. It’s the approach you’ve got to have.

“I mean, it’s hard. It’s really hard when you have a really tough January and February in the Big Ten because it’s unforgiving. It could wreck you. You try your hardest to stack days, and you have tough results. You’ve got to use all that as great fuel for the off-season and to live in the weight room, live in the gym, and take the next step as a college basketball player.”

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