New Cincinnati head coach Jerrod Calhoun knows that mid-majors are becoming even more of an obscurity in the college basketball landscape, which had a lot to do with his leaving a successful Utah State program. Despite believing in the Aggies' future, Calhoun admitted that his recent March Madness seeding played a big role in his decision to accept a new job.

Calhoun called Utah State a “top-30 job in America,” but knows the March Madness Selection Committee does not view it the same way. The 44-year-old admitted he knew the writing was on the wall when it gave his team a nine-seed after running through the Mountain West.

“Utah State is a top-30 job in America, it truly is,” Calhoun said at his introductory press conference. “But I can tell you this — when we got the nine-seed after winning 28 games, a regular-season title and a tournament title, that was pretty telling. The game has changed; college basketball has changed forever. We don't have one team — outside of Iowa, which is a nine-seed, and they're a Big Ten school — in the Sweet Sixteen.”

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Calhoun went 55-15 in two years at Utah State, but entered the NCAA Tournament as a 10-seed in 2025 and a nine-seed in 2026. His success was enough to earn his peers' respect, but not enough for the Selection Committee to make his Aggies the higher-seeded team in either tournament.

However, Utah State's placement in the 2026 tournament was beneficial for Calhoun's career. It allowed him to play a struggling power-conference team, Villanova, to end the season with a quality win while Stan Van Gundy repeatedly called him one of the best offensive minds in the game on the broadcast. If he was not already on Cincinnati's radar at that point, he certainly was by the end of the game.