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Utah State's Hiring of Ben Jacobson Ends Mark Madsen Rumors

Cal's success this season means Mark Madsen's name will pop up when other vacancies arise
Jake Curtis|
Cal head coach Mark Madsen
Cal head coach Mark Madsen | D. Ross Cameron-Imagn Images

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ESPN reported Monday that Utah State is hiring Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson to be the Aggies next head basketball coach, ending social media skuttlebutt that Cal's Mark Madsen was a candidate for the Utah State job..

For the past several days unsubstantiated rumors had been swirling around the internet that Madsen was a prime candidate for the Aggies’ head coaching job after Jerrod Calhoun left Utah State to become Cincinnati's head coach. 

It didn’t make sense and those wild rumors were rejected by those who realized that a move from Cal of the ACC to Utah State, which will be a member of the restructured Pac-12 next season, would be a lateral move at best and probably a step down from the ACC.

No reputable newspapers or sports sites suggested that Madsen was a candidate for the Utah State job, and Ira Gorawara of The Athletic noted the talk about Madsen was just rumors:

Madsen’s name is getting thrown around because he elevated a Cal team that won just three games in 2022-23, the year before he arrived, to a team that won 22 games and barely missed making it to the NCAA tournament this past season in his third year at Cal.

He demonstrated this season he could turn a lousy college basketball program into a decent one, and with that goes the burden of being talked about as a potential candidate when head coaching vacancies arise.

Madsen's name came up when Bobby Hurley was dismissed at Arizona State, but that talk ended when the Sun Devils hired Saint Mary's head coach Randy Bennett.

Madsen put a photo on his Twitter account on Sunday, which suggested he has every intention of remaining at Cal.

Madsen recently spoke about his confidence that he can retain the key players of this year’s squad, most notably sophomore Justin Pippen and junior Dai Dai Ames as well as freshman  Giovanni Ruff, who redshirted this season.

Ames said following Cal loss to Saint Joseph’s in the National Invitation Tournament that he plans to return to Cal next season, although nothing is certain until the transfer portal window comes and goes. (The men's basketball transfer portal opens April 7 and ends April 21.)

Madsen wants to build on this year’s success, and that requires keeping the core of the 2025-26 squad.  He has been unable to do that in the past two seasons, and was forced to start from scratch each time.

But he is gaining a favorable reputation, which brings about the rumors.

There were some superficial reasons why Madsen might have been interested in the Utah State job, but none that seemed to warrant a move from the ACC to the new Pac-12.

Madsen is under contract to Cal through the 2029-30 season with a reported annual compensation of about $2.8 million.

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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