CBS Sports analyst Jon Rothstein isn’t buying the early buzz around Cincinnati just yet, and he’s putting the Bearcats in the bottom half of the Big 12 for now.
Rothstein slotted Cincinnati 12th in the 16-team league as the 2026-27 season approaches, even while acknowledging that Jerrod Calhoun has brought in an entirely new roster and staff in an effort to push the program back into national relevance. The Bearcats are trying to reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time this decade, and Rothstein made it clear he wants proof before he fully commits.
He did, however, attach a little incentive to the idea. If Cincinnati gets to the NCAA Tournament in a 76-team field next March, he said he’ll make a trip to Fountain Square and buy Graeter’s ice cream for Bearcats fans in downtown Cincinnati for an hour.
"I'll tell you what I'm going to do, because I am not somebody who hides from this," Rothstein said on Inside College Basketball Now. "I just gave you my two cents, and if you hold up your end of the bargain, Cincinnati and Jerrod Calhoun, I'm going to give you more than two cents.
"There is a Graeter's Ice Cream in Fountain Square in downtown Cincinnati, and if Cincinnati makes the NCAA Tournament in 2027, before the 27-28 season, I am going to fly to Cincinnati, and I am going to put my credit card down at that Graeter's Ice Cream in Fountain Square, and I'm buying ice cream for all Bearcats fans in downtown Cincinnati for one hour to celebrate this achievement, because now there's nowhere to run. Now I'm invested, just like you have been invested, and I told you what was going to happen seven years ago, and I believe that this program under Jerrod Calhoun will be different moving forward, but the facts are the facts."
Rothstein’s hesitation centers in part on MJ Collins and whether he will officially be on the team this winter. He said he would likely revisit his ranking if that court case injunction makes its way through the system.
Without clarity on Collins’ status, Rothstein said he can’t fully buy into the online optimism surrounding the Bearcats. Even so, he still expects Cincinnati to be in the field this March, pointing to Bart Torvik’s preseason system, which has the Bearcats 40th.
He also praised Calhoun’s background and competitive edge, calling him "a brilliant offensive coach who did a great job at Utah State." Rothstein said Calhoun has been pushing for more respect and more attention, and he compared the coach’s fighter mentality to Mick Cronin and Bob Huggins, two coaches Calhoun worked with or for before becoming a successful Division I coach.
"But I look at Cincinnati's roster, and obviously that will change if MJ Collins is eligible. But I look at Cincinnati's roster, and I see a roster to me that's hard to give the benefit of the doubt to over a program that's coached by Grant McCasland (Texas Tech), over a program that's coached by Scott Drew (Baylor), or over a program like Arizona State that's coached by Randy Bennett."
The Bearcats will keep chasing their first NCAA Tournament appearance in this stretch under Calhoun, while Rothstein’s ice cream promise hangs out there as a very public wager on Cincinnati’s turnaround.
In Other News...
Jerrod Calhoun Just Cleared An Early Recruiting Test At Cincinnati
Jerrod Calhoun and his staff have already put Cincinnati in a strong position with one of the more sought-after guards in the 2027 class. Payton Jones, a Dynamic Prep standout in Texas, has trimmed a list that once stretched to 25 offers down to a final group of seven, and the Bearcats are still in the mix after making him a priority early in the process. Jones is ranked 65th nationally and 12th among combo guards, which gives Cincinnati a clear sense of the level of prospect it is chasing.
The Bearcats also got Jones on campus in June, a useful step for a staff that has been working to close ground quickly under Calhoun. The remaining competition is sturdy, with Baylor, Boston College, Houston, Clemson, Maryland and Oklahoma State all still involved, so Cincinnatis early push has earned it a seat at the table. What happens next will tell whether that visit and the staffs recent momentum are enough to keep the Bearcats in position as Jones narrows things further. [Read more 🡒]
Is March Enough For Jerrod Calhoun's First Bearcats Season
Jerrod Calhouns first season in Cincinnati comes with the usual new-coach uncertainty, but the Bearcats are also starting from a roster that looks heavily remade. For a program that has spent the past several years trying to reestablish itself, the early conversation around Calhoun is less about lofty projections and more about whether the team can take a meaningful first step back into the national picture.
CBS Sports Jon Rothstein has framed that step pretty plainly: getting into the expanded NCAA Tournament field should be the baseline goal, and anything beyond that would signal real progress for a team that has been largely out of the spotlight. Beating Xavier and hanging around the upper half of the Big 12 would help, too, but the bigger question is whether Cincinnati can turn this reset into something that feels relevant again, with 2026-27 viewed as the season when that answer might finally start to show. [Read more 🡒]