Video Breakdown: Penn State gets pivotal transfer in Ace Baldwin
On Sunday night, Penn State basketball picked up a significant transfer when former VCU point guard Ace Baldwin chose the Nittany Lions out of the transfer portal. To learn more about what the team is getting from Baldwin, check out Blue White Illustrated’s video breakdown of Baldwin’s impact on the team.
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Penn State getting a leader in Baldwin
It’s unsurprising that new Penn State basketball coach Mike Rhoades would visit the portal with only three players on the roster. Baldwin, the reigning A-10 player of the year, is a big score. Rhoades spoke highly of Baldwin earlier this year.
“His competitive spirit, his competitive fire, he doesn’t like to lose. He’s emotional in a good way, and he pulls guys along,” Rhoades said. “I think the one thing that Ace does better than everyone that we know is he gives out confidence to his teammates, competitive confidence to his teammates that, as much as a coach you want to pump your players up, when a teammate, when the best player on the team is giving out that confidence to their teammates, everybody plays better. Everybody plays hard. Everybody plays the right way,” Rhoades said earlier this year.
One of the most interesting sticking points of Baldwin’s fit on the Penn State roster is the presence of second-year player Kanye Clary.
Bauer and T-Frank don’t see how both mesh as both play point guard. So can they co-exist on the same roster?
“Yeah, great question. Honestly, I don’t know. Given the fact that Baldwin played 35 minutes a game last season and he does kind of the same stuff as Kanye Clary would create stay at least some decisions to be made or some figuring out of how you’re going to, you know, move forward, I guess, as a program, whether or not those two can play on on the court at the same time,” Bauer said.
Bauer went on to explain what other qualities Baldwin brings to the table,
“He scored 12.7 points. He had 5.8 assists and 2.9 rebounds. But he gets steals. As I said, he gets the free-throw line. He does shoot three-pointers. He’s not a great three-point shooter, but he just does a little bit of everything.”
