Penn State adds Kansas City leading scorer RayQuawndis Mitchell from transfer portal
Penn State picked up a transfer portal commitment Wednesday as it continues to round out its roster under new head coach Mike Rhoades.
Kansas City Roos guard RayQuawndis Mitchell — the team’s leading scorer last season — announced his commitment to the Nittany Lions via Twitter Wednesday afternoon.
The former Kansas City guard told the Centre Daily Times his decision came down to the relationship he built with the staff.
“It seemed like the right fit at the perfect time,” Mitchell told the CDT. “They’re coming after me pretty hard, Coach Rhoades and the rest of the staff. It seems like the more and more relationships I built with them, it seemed like I’d known them longer and longer. It’s that family part, honestly.”
Mitchell has one year of eligibility remaining and has already played seasons at Idaho (2018-2019), Otero Junior College (2019-2020), UIC (2020-2021) and Kansas City (2022-2023) after missing the 2021-2022 season due to injury. He averaged 17.3 points per game with the Roos on 14.6 shots per game, including shooting 30.5% on 8.1 3-point attempts per game.
His addition to the program means the team now has nine scholarship players on the roster for the upcoming season.
He joins Qudus Wahab (Georgetown), Ace Baldwin Jr. (VCU), Nick Kern Jr. (VCU), Zach Hicks (Temple), Leo O’Boyle (Lafayette) and Puff Johnson (North Carolina) as transfer additions, while Jameel Brown, Demetrius Lilley and Kanye Clary are all returning from last year’s team.
Mitchell said the staff emphasized his fit next to Baldwin in the backcourt.
“They need another piece to come in and get some buckets for them, get some points,” he said. “They want me to come in with Ace in the backcourt and hopefully we can make some noise in the Big Ten together.”
Those two along with Clary and Brown are set to be the team’s four guards in their rotation this year, while Kern, Hicks, O’Boyle and Johnson are on pace to play on the wing with Wahab and Lilley at center.
