The Penn State Nittany Lions men's basketball program will be hiring its first general manager, according to a report on Wednesday night from the Field of 68's Jeff Goodman.
According to Goodman, former Rice head coach Scott Pera will be the first to fulfill that role. Pera is a Penn State Harrisburg graduate and also worked under Rhoades from 2014-17 at Rice before being promoted to head coach upon Rhoades's departure to VCU.
Pera, a native of Hershey, began his coaching career in 1992 at Elizabethtown College before coaching high school basketball at Palyra and Annville-Cleona from 1993 through 2000. In 2000, he moved to the West Coast to coach at Artesia High School in the Los Angeles Area until 2006.
The 57-year-old Pera got his first opportunity in the college game in 2006 when he became the director of basketball operations at Arizona State under head coach Herb Sendek before being promoted to assistant coach. He would make the move back to Pennsylvania in 2012 to serve three years at Penn as an assistant coach before serving as an assistant coach at Rice under Rhoades, as previously mentioned.
In 2017, he was named the Owls' head coach and served in that position through the 2023-24 season. The Owls struggled to find sustained success during his tenure, as he collected a career record of 96-127 and 45-81.
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