SAN DIEGO\u2014When not scouting an opponent, Utah State coach Jerrod Calhoun prefers to watch professional basketball over the college game. Either the Boston Celtics, where former player and assistant Joe Mazzulla has won an NBA title, or European competition.<\/p>\n
But if Calhoun does decide to watch college hoops, Arizona is high on his list.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love the way they play,\u201d Calhoun said. \u201cThere\u2019s very few college basketball teams I enjoy watching play. But Tommy\u2019s probably one of the five teams I really enjoy watching. I think he creates a space for his players. He\u2019s done a tremendous job playing big. It\u2019s hard to do in today\u2019s landscape. I think their players really know how to play.\u201d<\/p>\n
That meant Calhoun already had a frame of reference when he began watching film of the Wildcats in preparation for Sunday\u2019s NCAA Tournament second round game. After beating Villanova on Friday night he said he planned to watch \u201cat least seven\u201d UA games, which would require a lot of coffee.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m losing track of coffee,\u201d he said Saturday. \u201cIt\u2019s starting to taste like all the same, whether it\u2019s a latte, a light roast, a dark roast. Four already today, to be honest with you.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 44-year-old Calhoun, in his second year at Utah State, has been a college head coach since 2012 when he left an assistant job with Bob Huggins at West Virginia to take over Division II Fairmont State. After five seasons he jumped to D-I, coaching at Youngstown State for seven years before taking the Utah State job.<\/p>\n
Calhoun has made the NCAA tourney both seasons with the Aggies and appears poised to be the latest coach to leave that school for a bigger job. He replaced Danny Sprinkle, who is at Washington, and before him was Ryan Odom (VCU, then Virginia) and Craig Smith (Utah). And that\u2019s all since 2021.<\/p>\n
A Cincinnati alum, he\u2019s been linked to that opening, and while he didn\u2019t address that job specifically he did note that being rumored for other jobs is a sign of success.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen was the last Utah State coach that hasn\u2019t been rumored for a job?,\u201d he said. \u201cAnytime you have success, coaches are trying to steal your players, and athletic directors are certainly wanting to talk to the coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n
Only four programs from outside the power conferences made the second round this year, and for the second tourney in a row no teams seeded 4th or better lost in the first round. That\u2019s led to plenty of debate about whether NIL and revenue sharing have made it harder for mid-majors to become Cinderellas.<\/p>\n
Utah State is definitely at a disadvantage from a financial standpoint. Calhoun said that, although his school opted in to participating in revenue sharing following the landmark NCAA settlement last summer, no actual revenue was shared. Instead, all of his money for roster management came from donors, with that bringing in $2.4 million for 2025-26 after generating less than $900,000 his first season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew as a staff we\u2019ve got to spend about 70 percent of our time in the offseason fundraising,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s something I\u2019ve always done at Youngstown State, Fairmont State and now Utah State.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where Utah State could have an edge is in the court of public opinion. While Arizona is a betting favorite to make the Final Four and win it all, the first weekend of the tourney is as much about upsets as anything else.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think America is dying for a mid-major,\u201d Calhoun said. \u201cSo if one of these three or four teams that are left can get to a Sweet 16, you instantly become America\u2019s team, right? Everybody in the country roots for the underdog.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yours truly was there, filling in for longtime Arizona Daily Star beat writer Bruce Pascoe, and the 14th-seeded Aggies had a pretty strong turnout who made the 4-hour drive from Logan, Utah. That included members of The Hurd, Utah State\u2019s student section.<\/p>\n
Arizona is 1-3 against Utah State, though the three losses were between 1958-63. The only meeting this century came in the first round of the 2005 NCAA Tournament, won 66-53 by the Wildcats in Boise.<\/p>\n
Third-seeded Arizona trailed 29-26 at halftime before Channing Frye and Salim Stoudamire took over. That duo combined for 25 points in the second half, making 11 free throws and helping hold Utah State to 26.7 percent shooting in the second half.<\/p>\n
The UA would go on to beat No. 11 UAB in the second round, then knock off No. 2 Oklahoma State in the Sweet 16 in Rosemont, Ill. No need to pick the scab of what happened after that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN DIEGO\u2014When not scouting an opponent, Utah State coach Jerrod Calhoun prefers to watch professional basketball over the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671676,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[9763,7,217,231,772,1544],"class_list":{"0":"post-671675","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-arizona-basketball","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-college-basketball","11":"tag-ncaa","12":"tag-ncaa-basketball","13":"tag-ncaab"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116270082503008354","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671675"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671675\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}