KANSAS CITY, MO – If everything goes right for new Cincinnati Bearcats men's basketball coach Jerrod Calhoun, he'll hoist another league championship trophy come March.
He did it last March in the Mountain West with Utah State in Las Vegas.
Calhoun made his Big 12 Media Day debut Oct. 20 at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City, the site of the Big 12 Championships in March 2027 with some of his new team. Calhoun and players Myles Colvin, Jayden Hastings and Tylen Riley attended their first Monster Energy Big 12 Basketball Media Day, where coaches have them ranked as the eighth-best team in the league, tied with West Virginia.
Calhoun isn't concerned about preseason prognostications, even if they are from Big 12 coaches.
Cincinnati Bearcats No. 8 in Big 12 coaches poll
"Is that where we're ranked?," Calhoun said. "I don't have social media, so I could care less. I don't know if it's good or bad, I just don't care what other people think about my team. The game's got to be played, and you finish where you finish, right?"
How Jerrod Calhoun assembled Big 12 team from scratch
Walk-on Grant Darbyshire is UC's lone returning player, so Calhoun and general manager Corey Evans had a busy spring trying to find a squad that would buy into "We over Me", the mantra that surrounds the Bearcats on the scoreboards at Fifth Third Arena during practice.
"We have a formula for every position," Calhoun said. "Structurally, it's get old, stay old and then build the youth behind those older guys."
Riley, Hasting, Colvin, Riley Allenspach, Tyler Tejada and Trevian Carson are all seniors. Fifth-year players include Javontae Campbell who is currently injured and MJ Collins, who was eligible as this was being written and played in the Illinois exhibition.
Tylen Riley has been early exhibition star for UC Bearcats
Calhoun recruits efficient players with versatility. Tylen Riley has led the Bearcats in their opening exhibitions with 23 points vs. Ohio State and 31 vs. Illinois, but he sounds far from selfish.
"Sometimes the bench wins you the game," Riley said. "We have like 10 starters and we're all interchangeable. It's a blessing. Not every team in the country has that."
Riley's career started at Cal Baptist, which got him to Tulsa and the NIT championship last season. He's now elevated his game to the Big 12.
"I've just been progressing every year," he said. "I can't wait to do it again."
Jerrod Calhoun says Cincinnati Bearcats are 'unpredictable'
Calhoun grew up studying other defenses and figuring out how to counter their moves. He also likes developing players and seeing them grow, which explains why Elijah Perryman, David Iweze and Adlan Elamin all followed him from Utah State to Cincinnati.
"I think our offense is unpredictable, but I also think our defense is unpredictable," Calhoun said. "The best way to describe our team is we're very unpredictable on both sides of the ball."
The Bearcats have several options that can stand out on any given night. Trevian Carson had the best plus/minus total and was a defensive stopper vs. Ohio State. 6-foot-9 Tyler Tejada has been in double digits in both exhibitions and 6-foot-6 Eric Mahaffey has seven rebounds and no shots against the Buckeyes, then made all of his shots vs. Illinois.
UC Bearcats will not have a 7-foot center
They do have a pair of 6-foot-11 guys in Allenspach and DeShaun Vaden, plus the 6-foot-9 Iweze and Jayden Hastings, who's listed at 6-foot-10 and 245 pounds. Hastings has started the exhibitions.
"We don't really need any 7-footers," Hastings said. "We have versatility in all of our positions. I can battle any of them. The Illinois game, we battled a lot in the paint and most of their shots came from three-point range. We can battle anybody in the country."
UC senior Myles Colvin has played in NCAA championship game
As a freshman at Purdue, Colvin played 12 minutes in the 2024 title game vs. Connecticut and was in the tournament the following season as well. After a year in the ACC with Wake Forest, Colvin will lead, but isn't necessarily vocal.
He lets his nearly 43-inch vertical leap and shooting do the talking on the court.
"I try to lead by example; that's where I come in," Colvin said. "Just doing the right things, being where I'm supposed to be at the right times, that's where I come in."
Colvin is UC's leading leaper, but says sophomore 6-foot-4 guard Akai Fleming is close at 41-to-42 inches on his vertical.
Update on UC guard MJ Collins
Collins was granted eligibility by executive order of Ohio Governor Mike DeWine and played vs. Illinois, but his status still might need court clearance.
"I have a lot of thoughts," Calhoun said. "I think the biggest thing right now, I talked to Coach (Bill) Self, all of the different coaches in the Big 12, all of us have to let the legal system play out. I think that's what we're going to do at Cincinnati."
One more exhibition ahead for Cincinnati Bearcats
So far, UC's battled Ohio State and won on a tennis court and lost to an Illinois team that played in the Final Four last spring. Oakland is up next and they're from Michigan if you didn't know.
Calhoun's strategy before the season is to test his team.
"You're at Cincinnati; you want to play really good people," he said. "Why would you play bad teams?"
Calhoun is friends with Ohio State coach Jake Diebler, which brought on that exhibition and he was glad to help the CareSource cause with Dayton coach Anthony Grant. With Illinois, he knows coach Brad Underwood and wanted to see a Top 10 team.
"You say, 'Ah, it's just Oakland,' well, Oakland beat Kentucky a few years back," Calhoun said. "At the end of the day, everything is strategically planned. Oakland's going to sit in a zone the entire game for 40 minutes. I want to see zone live. That's why we played Oakland and he (coach Greg Kampe) is a good friend. At the end of the day, we owe it to our players to go schedule good teams. Why would you play Division IIs? That rule went out the door, a while back. Let's play the best teams."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Where UC Bearcats rank in Big 12 coaches poll at Media Day