SAN DIEGO – In the world of bet on yourself, Utah State coach Jerrod Calhoun did just that.
Isn’t that what you tell your kids these days? Take your life seriously and bet on yourself. If you don’t who will?
He’s done it a lot lately, and, well, here he is as he put it – in the second round of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament vs top-seed Arizona. Utah State plays Arizona on Sunday afternoon.
The journey for Calhoun has been a very zigzagged one.
From being a student assistant at Cincinnati under Bobby Huggins many years ago to going to Fairmont State to Youngstown State to Utah State, who coach go to gain some more experience and eventually move on.
As he put it, “everybody’s story is different.”
Indeed. He left West Virginia as an assistant under Huggins before moving to Fairmont.
“I don’t know if there’s another coach in the country that would have done that,” he said, after his team beat Villanova to advance to play Arizona on Sunday.
He did, wanting to be a head coach.
“And here we are,” he said.
On the big stage, hoping to make it even better. Utah State won both the Mountain West Conference regular season and postseason tournament. He was named the conference coach of the year after Utah State went 24-8 and 15-5 in the conference.
“It’s not about me at this point,” he said. “It’s about surviving and adanc(ing). But that was the turning point for me. I always dreamed of this, you know, watching guys like Jay Wright and all the great coaches in the NCAA tournament. And to get the first one, it’s special. Hopefully we can get many more.”
Until then, he’ll watch at least 10-12 hours of film on Arizona before Sunday’s game.
“It’s going to be a tremendous challenge,” he said of facing Arizona. “Tommy Lloyd is one of the best coaches in the country. They’re No. 1 seed for a reason.
“I love the way they play. There’s very few college basketball teams I enjoy watching play. I would rather watch Europe or the Boston Celtics. But Tommy’s probably one of the five teams I really enjoy watching.”
The guess is, he’s betting on himself to make something happen on Sunday.
