By Oliver Thomas, Staff Writer

Last week, the University of Cincinnati (UC) men’s basketball program announced Jerrod Calhoun as their new head coach. Calhoun spent the last two years at Utah State where he led the Aggies to back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances. 

Calhoun, who grew up in East Liverpool, Ohio, graduated from UC in 2004, where he spent a season as a graduate assistant under Bob Huggins. He then spent the next decade of his career in various assistant coaching jobs. He got his first head coaching job in 2012 at Division II Fairmount State. In 2017, Calhoun took his first Division I head coaching job at Youngstown State, where he coached there for seven years before coaching at Utah State in 2024.

After the past six seasons under Head Coach Wes Miller, under whom the Bearcats failed to make an NCAA tournament, UC hopes that a new face running the program can help turn the program around.

“We should not just be wanting to get to the NCAA tournament. We should be wanting to advance week by week and get back to the Final Four,” Calhoun stated in his introductory conference. “When you look at Cincinnati basketball, the best teams here, people feared us. People feared coming into Fifth Third Arena.”

Once Miller’s departure was announced, Calhoun quickly emerged as the frontrunner for the opening since he is regarded as one of the strongest offensive minds in college basketball. In his past two seasons at Utah State, he compiled a record of 55-15, while leading them to both a regular season and tournament conference championship this past season.

“Our style on offense is going to find, create and keep advantages. We play fast, but we want to play efficient,” Calhoun stated in an interview.

“You must get the fear into your opponents by really getting after them. One thing we’ll do is we’re going to steal the ball. We want to have that style,” Calhoun said.

“I think we need to dominate, right, we need to have appreciation for how good Xavier is and respect for their program. But at the end of the day, man, we need to run the city,” Calhoun said.

Calhoun’s hiring serves as a fresh start for the Bearcats. UC is a program rich in history, but has drastically underperformed in recent years. To the Bearcat faithful, Calhoun looks to be the person to turn the program around.