Ben Jacobson knew about the proud history of Utah State men’s basketball long before he was a candidate to be the Aggies’ next head coach. But it was during the interview process, as he was contemplating switching jobs for the first time in two decades, that it really sank in just how special the program is.
“It doesn’t take long to gain a real appreciation for all of the things that have been done here,” Jacobson tells Hoops HQ. “You take the last five, six years, and then you go back and look at the tradition going back for a long, long time. That was really attractive for me.”
Utah State is one of college basketball’s most decorated mid-majors. The program has experienced significant change over the past eight years, shuffling through four coaches (Craigh Smith, Ryan Odom, Danny Sprinkle and Jerrod Calhoun), all of whom left for high-major positions following short stints in Logan. And yet, the Aggies have somehow kept winning. They’ve made six NCAA Tournament appearances and claimed three Mountain West regular-season championships since 2019. Calhoun spent two seasons at the helm, accumulating a remarkable 55-15 record and going to back-to-back Big Dances, before being hired at his alma mater, Cincinnati, in late March.
Within a week, Utah State zeroed in on Jacobson to take over, in part because of his record of consistency and loyalty. He spent 20 years as the head coach at Northern Iowa, guiding the Panthers to five NCAA Tournaments, four Missouri Valley Conference regular-season titles and 397 victories. He drew interest for several jobs throughout that run, but none enticed him enough to leave Cedar Falls. Until Utah State.
As he starts anew, Jacobson is seeking the right balance between incorporating his own principles and maintaining what’s worked so well for the Aggies, even in the face of perpetual change. After retaining multiple key players, the table is set for Utah State to continue flourishing — and perhaps climb higher than ever before. For all its success, the program hasn’t reached the Sweet Sixteen since 1970, a feat that Jacobson accomplished with the Panthers in 2010. There is tremendous optimism in Logan that Jacobson will be the coach to finally get USU over the hump, whether that’s next year or sometime down the road.
“We spoke to coaches, administrators, former players and people across the game who understand what winning looks like, and more importantly, who understand what sustained winning looks like,” Utah State’s vice president and director of athletics Cameron Walker said about the school’s national coaching search. “At every step of that process, one name consistently rose to the top: Ben Jacobson.”
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Jacobson joins USU amid its highly anticipated transition to the new Pac-12. The move was another factor in his decision, as the heightened competition should give the program more exposure and increase its chances of getting into the NCAA Tournament moving forward. The rebuilt conference features two legacy members (Oregon State and Washington State), five Mountain West programs (Utah State, San Diego State, Boise State, Colorado State and Fresno State), perennial powerhouse Gonzaga and the Sun Belt’s Texas State.
Lastly, Jacobson was excited about the possibility of working with the players already at Utah State, who helped the program win the 2025-26 Mountain West title. Upon arriving in Logan, he got right to work trying to retain the guys with remaining eligibility.
“After 25 years at Northern Iowa, there’s been a little different bounce in your step and the newness has been a lot of fun,” Jacobson says. “You get through the press conference, the interviews, and then it’s immediately getting with the current players. That was and will remain the top priority for me and our staff.”
While other newly hired coaches have had to rebuild their rosters from scratch, Jacobson’s retention efforts proved successful. The top prize was 6-foot-4 junior guard Mason Falslev, a three-year starter for the Aggies and the reigning Mountain West Player of the Year. Last season, the do-it-all wing averaged 16.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.9 steals while shooting 51.4 percent from the field and 39.0 percent from three. He and Jacobson talked through what it would mean for Falslev to be a lifetime Aggie and how the two sides could eventually get there. On April 6, one day before the portal opened, Falslev announced that he was coming back.
“I know he and I have only known each other for six weeks, but I’ve been really proud of him as he’s sorted through this,” Jacobson says. “Legacy means something to him. He wants to play his last game in the Spectrum as a college player. So we talked through all those things and they were great conversations. That’s been a big part of my excitement and enthusiasm for this job.”
Falslev’s decision was tied to that of his close friend and fan favorite Karson Templin, a 6-foot-9 junior forward who has also been with the Aggies since 2023. Coming off a career year in which he averaged 8.8 points and 4.2 rebounds, Templin re-committed alongside Falslev during the first week of April. Both players have remained loyal to USU despite two coaching changes and the constant allure of the portal, where they could surely demand larger contracts.
In addition to Falslev and Templin, Utah State re-signed two redshirt freshmen — 6-foot-5 guard Brayden Boe and 6-foot-8 forward Kingston Tosi — and received an early commitment from 6-foot-8 sophomore forward Will Hornseth, who played for Jacobson at Northern Iowa for two seasons. Hornseth started all 35 games for the Panthers in 2025-26, averaging 11.1 points and 4.6 rebounds.
Having those pieces in place made Portal Madness much easier to navigate. Jacobson had a solid foundation to point to and build around. As the chaos commenced, the biggest gaps he had to fill were at the point guard and center positions. Utah State landed two promising floor generals in 6-foot-3 sophomore AJ Bates (12.1 points, 5.9 assists and 1.2 steals at Louisiana Tech) and 6-foot freshman Ace Reiser, one of the top JUCO players in the country (14.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.4 steals at the College of Southern Idaho).
To bolster his frontcourt, Jacobson added four towering bigs, all of whom stand around 7-feet. Two are transfers from other mid-majors and two are making the leap from the JUCO level. The most experienced of the bunch is 6-foot-10 senior forward Connor Turnbull, who averaged 9.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.1 blocks in a pair of seasons at Evansville and was the 2024-25 Missouri Valley Conference Defensive Player of the Year.
Utah State rounded out its transfer class with sharpshooting wing Solomon Callaghan, a 6-foot-2 sophomore from Wright State. Callaghan averaged 10.2 points and knocked down 39.5 percent of his threes last season, helping the Raiders win the Horizon League. In the first round of the NCAA Tournament, he dropped 18 points in a narrow loss to No. 3 seed Virginia.
With summer sessions around the corner, Jacobson is eager to hit the ground running and begin developing a style that best suits his new team. “We will work on that part together,” he says, “in terms of things that have been highly successful for us at Northern Iowa and for me as a head coach, and things that have been highly successful for Mason, Carson, Kingston and Boe here at Utah State. We haven’t gotten all the way there yet. We’ll be working on that as we get into our workouts here in June.”
That process will take some time, as a lot has changed since the 2025-26 campaign ended two months ago.
But the more things change at Utah State, the more they stay the same.
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