- Alex Jensen seeks consistency for Utah men's basketball in his first season.
- Despite struggles, Jensen focuses on building a strong team culture and fundamentals.
- Utah faces Arizona State next, aiming for a rare conference win at home.
SALT LAKE CITY — Consistency is the name of the game. Unfortunately for the Utah men's basketball team, consistency is fleeting.
In Alex Jensen's first season as head coach at Utah, his team has been competitive in most games, even with a roster that was compiled late and lacked the star power of many of the other Big 12 teams.
But being competitive hasn't simply been enough, especially when Utah only has one conference win, and the chance for another is not guaranteed.
Jensen has been open and honest about his team's struggles, citing a team that "quit" against BYU on the road, and a team that was "selfish" during a home loss to Oklahoma State in a game he said they were "embarrassed." He's even said "we're not a very good defensive team."
There's times of frustration as he watches the team he assembled play one-on-five ball and nothing resembling team chemistry as each tries to do it his own way. But then there's times — albeit more sporadic — where his team buys into each other and plays a fluid game on both ends of the floor.
But consistency.
It's all part of a "learning process, a maturing process" he and his players are going through this season. Nobody expected Utah to suddenly be Arizona, but Jensen isn't throwing in the towel just yet because his first season hasn't gone that well.
To Jensen, it's about laying the groundwork today so that tomorrow can potentially be better. It's a "day-by-day" process and one in which he hopes people can "sense" a sort of culture — or the expectations for the program and "how things are done" — that's being developed again at Utah.
"I think it'll get better," Jensen said.
For now, it's trying to instill into his team the need for consistency on both ends of the floor. Utah isn't going to out-athlete many in the Big 12 — even though Utah has two prime scorers in Terrence Brown and Don McHenry. Utah, simply, has to be better with the fundamentals for a chance to compete.
"I'll give it to our guys, I think they've always bounced back," Jensen said. "It's being more consistent with the defense, like just the little things, the things you can control. And falling into shots instead of necessarily hunting them, but just being on the same page together. But, yeah, they've always bounced back and done a good job with that.
"You've just got to be consistent; that's the challenge," he added. "To do it every possession, not only in practice, but in the games."
Utah gets its next chance Wednesday night at home against an Arizona State team struggling to find its own consistency to the season after just one more Big 12 win than the Utes. It's a chance for Utah to earn a rare conference win at home, but it's far from a guarantee.
Scouting the future
Jensen is solely focused on the current season, even if wins will be tough to come by over the next month of the season, but he's eager to get a better jump on roster building now that he's fully ingrained with Utah and the college way of life.
Instead of coming into the recruiting calendar late last season, Jensen and his staff — primarily general manager Wes Wilcox — have a better process in place to upgrade the current roster. It's one they're still "figuring out," but there's a better operation underway to evaluate and pursue talent.
So will Utah primarily focus on the high school ranks, looking to bring in freshmen and develop them, or pursue more experienced (and proven) players through the transfer portal, overseas, or even the G League?
"I think it's a combination of all of them," he said. "I don't think there's any one area we're focusing on strongly. I mean, obviously, you can see that people have had a lot of success with being older. But at the same time, we just played Arizona who started three freshmen. Now, we're not, right now, in the place to be in the running for players like that, but I think it'd be a combination of it.
"I think more so than that, you're trying to find the core characteristics of a player you want. And they've got to want to be here, which may seem simple and obvious, but it's a big deal."
