New Penn State men’s basketball coach Mike Rhoades announced his coaching staff on Thursday afternoon during his introductory press conference at the Bryce Jordan Center. The staff will be made up of former VCU assistants Jamal Brunt, J.D. Byers and Brent Scott and former Nittany Lion great Joe Crispin, who has been the head coach at Rowan University since 2016.
Rhoades also noted that Jimmy Martelli would join the program. Martelli, son of legendary coach Phil Martelli, was with Rhoades at VCU in a director of operations role.
“His pride in Penn State is something else, he loves this place,” Rhoades said of Crispin. “That is great. Beyond that, Joe knows basketball. He and I have talked about basketball and we all see the game similar in how we want to do this. And him bleeding on this court and sweating on this court adds to it. I’m super excited and he has the same mentality as my [old] staff.”
Brunt has been at VCU with Rhoades since 2018, previously making stops at Miami and Richmond. While at Miami, Brunt was an assistant coach alongside now two-time former assistant and Penn State grad Adam Fisher who both recruited Reading standout Lonnie Walker IV. Fisher, who joined Micah Shrewsberry’s staff as associate head coach, was named Temple’s new head coach on Wednesday. Brunt is a Baltimore native with collegiate roots at Randolph-Macon in Virginia.
Byers has been with Rhoades since 2014 when the duo joined up at Rice. Prior to that Byers had spent time at Radford and St. Francis (Pa.), among a few other stops including Lebanon Valley.
Scott is another holdover from Rhoades’ time at Rice, making the jump to VCU with Rhoades in 2017. He had previous stops at TCU, LSU and at Rice earlier in his career.
“We cried sad tears for leaving a place we love but also happy tears of ‘man, this is going to be so much fun,’” Rhoades said.
It remains to be seen how many other roles Rhoades has on his staff similar to his predecessors.
