Utah got its man the second time around.
One week after the University of Utah announced it was parting ways with men’s basketball head coach Craig Smith, athletic director Mark Harlan has found his replacement — Alex Jensen.
ESPN’s Pete Thamel was the first of multiple national reporters to report that the former Runnin’ Ute star who’s spent more than a decade in the NBA as an assistant coach — first with the Utah Jazz, then most recently with the Dallas Mavericks — will replace Smith as Utah’s head coach.
> Dallas Mavericks assistant Alex Jensen has accepted the job as the next coach at Utah, sources tell me and [@jeffborzello](https://twitter.com/jeffborzello?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw). He’s a former star player there and has been an NBA assistant since 2013. He’s a former head coach of the Canton Charge in the G League.
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> — Pete Thamel (@PeteThamel) [March 6, 2025](https://twitter.com/PeteThamel/status/1897690186122690851?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
An official announcement has yet to happen from the school.
Jensen was a candidate for the job when it opened four years ago but withdrew his name during the process and Smith was hired from Utah State to replace Larry Krystkowiak.
Smith went 65-62 as Utah’s head coach before being fired last week. During his nearly four seasons, the Utes made the NIT semifinals once but never made it back to the NCAA tournament.
It’s been nine years since the Utes have played in the NCAAs, and the hope is that Jensen, who grew up in Utah and played at Viewmont High, will be the guy to return the Utes to the national tournament.
Jensen played for legendary Utah coach Rick Majerus and was a part of the Utah team that played Kentucky in the 1998 national championship game.
Following an eight-year international playing career, Jensen started coaching alongside Majerus as an assistant at Saint Louis from 2007-11, then became the head coach of the NBA G League’s (then called the D League) Canton Charge from 2011-13 and was named the league’s Coach of the Year his final season.
Jensen then moved on to be an assistant with the Jazz from 2013-23, working under Quin Snyder and being involved in player development.
Two years ago, he took a job with the Mavericks after Snyder and the Jazz parted ways.
Now, Jensen takes over a Utah program that has been to the NCAA tournament just twice since moving to the power conference level with the Pac-12 back in 2011.
Both of those NCAA appearances came under Krystkowiak and were headlined by NBA talents Jakob Poeltl and Delon Wright.
This year, the Utes are in their first season in the Big 12 and have exceeded the preseason expectation that they would finish last in the league.
Instead, going into the final week of the regular season, the Utes are 16-14 overall and 8-11 in Big 12 play, with the chance to improve their seeding in the upcoming Big 12 tournament.
There’s still a chance that Utah could earn a first-round bye for the conference tournament. Still, the Utes are too far off the bubble to be considered in contention for the NCAA tournament at this point — even with wins over Kansas, Kansas State and BYU — barring a run to the Big 12 tournament championship.
That NCAA drought is a big part of the reason for Jensen’s return to Utah, and now, the process begins to see what the next generation of Utes basketball will look like.