Dallas Mavericks assistant Alex Jensen has reportedly accepted the Utah basketball head coaching job, Pete Thamel of ESPN reports.
“Dallas Mavericks assistant Alex Jensen has accepted the job as the next coach at Utah, sources tell me and@jeffborzello. 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,” Thamel wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Jensen, 48, played his college basketball at Utah, so this move represents a homecoming of sorts. Overall, he averaged just under 10 points per outing with the Utes, but Jensen enjoyed a breakout season of sorts during his final season in 1999-2000. That year, he averaged 13.1 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists and just under one steal per game. He also shot 54.2 percent from the field and 46 percent from beyond the arc.
As Thamel mentioned, Jensen previously was a G League coach with the Canton Charge. His coaching career began in 2007, though, when he coached at St. Louis University. Jensen later accepted the Canton Charge role after coaching at St. Louis University from 2007-2011.
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His NBA experience includes working as an assistant coach with both the Utah Jazz and the Mavericks. And now, Jensen is set to return to head coaching with Utah basketball.
Meanwhile, the Mavs will move forward despite a difficult season. Dallas is just a game above .500 at the moment, holding a 32-31 record. It was recently revealed that Kyrie Irving will miss the remainder of the season with a torn ACL in his left knee. There is also a chance that Anthony Davis could miss the remainder of the season, but nothing is official for AD yet.
The Mavericks will attempt to finish the 2024-25 campaign on a positive note. Regardless of how the team plays moving forward, Alex Jensen is set for the next chapter in his coaching career with Utah basketball.