Student Assistant, Row 14

In the spring of 2004, Jerrod Calhoun was a senior at the University of Cincinnati doing what most student assistants do: running the clock during practice, rebounding for shooters, and sitting in Row 14 of whatever film session Bob Huggins was conducting that week. He was not a recruited player — he had transferred from Cleveland State, where he'd played two seasons for Rollie Massimino, and walked on at Cincinnati because he wanted to coach and Huggins was the best teacher he could find. He graduated that spring with a degree and a conviction that he would come back to this building someday, not as a student in Row 14, but as the man running the film session.

It took 22 years. On March 24, 2026, Cincinnati announced Calhoun as its 28th head men's basketball coach — the first Bearcat alumnus to hold the position since Tony Yates in 1989. He signed a six-year contract worth $3.7 million annually. He left Utah State, where he had gone 55-15 in two seasons and made the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back years, to take over a program that hasn't danced since 2020.

From Huggins to the Mountain West

Calhoun's coaching career reads like a manual on how to build a resume without shortcuts. After Cincinnati, he spent five years at Division II Fairmont State, where he went 92-51. From there, he joined Huggins as an assistant at West Virginia for five seasons, learning the press, the temperament, and the recruiting philosophy that would define his own programs.

Youngstown State was the first real test — he took over a program that had won four games the season before and spent seven years turning it into a Horizon League contender at 118-106. Then Utah State: 55-15 in two seasons, 2026 Mountain West Coach of the Year, a first-round tournament win over Villanova. Walking away from that was the hardest decision of his career. But Cincinnati called, and Cincinnati is not a job Jerrod Calhoun was ever going to say no to.

What Went Wrong Under Wes Miller

Hired in 2021 from UNC Greensboro, Miller arrived in the Big 12 and immediately ran into a wall of roster turnover, NIL disadvantages, and recruiting losses to conference rivals outspending the Bearcats by multiples. Five consecutive seasons without an NCAA Tournament appearance for a program that had made 31 all-time. The Big 12 move, which was supposed to elevate Cincinnati's national profile, instead exposed how far the program had fallen behind the conference's resource arms race.

Miller is not a bad coach — his 77-85 record came against the toughest schedule Cincinnati had faced in decades — but he was the wrong coach for a program that needed someone who understood its specific institutional DNA.

What Comes Next

Calhoun's first challenge is the transfer portal, which opens April 7. Several Utah State players are expected to follow him to Cincinnati. The Bearcats' NIL infrastructure is improving, though it still trails the Big 12's top programs. What Calhoun brings that money cannot buy is legitimacy: he is the program, the program is him.

The last Cincinnati alum to coach the Bearcats won 81 games in five seasons. Jerrod Calhoun spent 22 years earning his way back to this job. Now he has six years and $3.7 million a year to prove that coming home was worth the wait.