Alex Jensen looks forward to carrying on Utah Utes basketball tradition he helped establish

University of Utah president Taylor Randall couldn’t resist having some fun while introducing Alex Jensen as the Runnin’ Utes’ new basketball coach.

“It’s remarkable — remarkable! — to have Alex return home at the same height and the same playing weight,” Randall quipped at the Huntsman Center on Monday evening. “It’s absolutely fantastic.”

Randall, who earned his undergraduate degree from Utah, also regaled the crowd with a tale of how he, then a PhD student at the University of Pennsylvania, made the 26-hour drive to San Antonio to watch Jensen, a 6-foot-7, 225-pound small forward, and the Utes play in the Final Four.

Utah, then coached by the legendary Rick Majerus, made it to the national championship game, where it lost to the Kentucky Wildcats.

While Jensen does indeed seem to still be in fighting trim from those glory days of Utah hoops 27 years ago, his hairline is receding a bit and he now sports a beard.

And everyone knows he’s not going to be popping mid-range jumpers or even 3-pointers like in the video highlights they showed before his introductory news conference.

The 48-year-old Jensen embraces his connection to that 1998 team, while adding: “I specifically approached this looking forward and facing forward to carry on the tradition.”

He’s being tasked with rebuilding the Runnin’ Utes to the point of making regular trips to the NCAA Tournament. That drought stretches back to 2016, when the Utes reached the second round, halfway through Larry Krystkowiak’s tenure as coach.

The best they could do under Craig Smith was a run to the NIT semifinals last season. Smith was fired in late February and replaced by interim coach Josh Eilert.

The Utes had a rough introduction to the Big 12 this season. With a 16-16 record after losing five of six games, the Utes will play in the inaugural College Basketball Crown, a 16-team tournament meant to go head-to-head with the NIT.

Jensen will remain in his job as an assistant with the Dallas Mavericks through the end of the NBA season.

This is Jensen’s first college coaching job since he was an assistant under Majerus at Saint Louis from 2007-11. He’s spent more than a decade as an NBA assistant coach, mostly with the Utah Jazz and then the last few seasons with the Mavericks.

He said he’ll draw on things he learned from working under Majerus and then Quin Snyder and Jason Kidd in the NBA.

“Being around all those coaches, I think I’ve got a good feel for the right way to do it, and the right way for me to do it,” Jensen said.

“The line I always say with Coach Majerus – and we joke about it – is he kind of ruins the game for you because you learn it’s hard to watch a game without picking it apart,” Jensen said. “There’s a genius to it and I was fortunate enough to play for him and start my coaching career, because you get your base knowledge of basketball.”

Jensen has head coaching experience with the G League Canton Charge and with Team USA at the 2022 FIBA AmeriCup, where the Americans finished third.

“The fortunate thing of being a head coach for a couple years is you learn to find yourself and you like being genuine. You find your cadence of when and when not to do things,” Jensen said. “The more coaches you're around, the more it helps you with that.

“I realized today I can’t be coach Majerus and I’ve got to find myself and I can’t be the other way,” he added. “Players and people react and respond to you being genuine, whether it’s encouraging or telling them to do it again and again and again. They need to know I care.”

Athletic director Mark Harlan said he had no problem reaching into the past for the new hire, “as long as that person was the best for this team going forward, then that would be great. And boy did we get that in Alex Jensen.

“We have reached into our past to develop our future. And it’s time for a new day.”

Harlan said he used the interview process to go beyond X’s and O’s and get to know Jensen.

“I can tell his excitement was there,” the AD said.

“College basketball has changed a lot since those videos, and I wanted to make sure he was up to speed on all those changes as well,” Harlan added.

Among those changes are NIL and the transfer portal.

“It’s the Wild West, that’s for sure,” Jensen said.

The new coach provided some levity while discussing how he’ll have to get back into recruiting.

“It’s been a while. When I stopped recruiting last time, they were just introducing text messages and I thought, ‘Oh, I’m glad I’m leaving. It’s going to get crazy,’” he said.

“In fact I started my Facebook page because I thought that was how I was going to recruit, because they had just legalized it, and I haven’t touched it since. And I might have to get a Twitter account now or something,” he said.

Yes, there are a lot of changes he needs to get up to speed on.

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