Their will be a basketball game at the Jon M. Huntsman Center on Saturday. But, a big attraction for fans will that add to the mix is the 1998 Utah Utes Final Four team will be honored at halftime of the game of the 2017-18 Utes taking on the Cal Bears.
Their was a reason why the 1998 team went to the Final Four. They went 25-2 in the regular season including 13-2 in the Mountain West. They lost to New Mexico in the Pit by 3 and in Laramie to Wyoming by 6 points. The crazy thing is that they didn’t even win their conference tournament. They lost in the first round to UNLV by 3 points. They started the season 18-0 before losing to New Mexico in February. Their path to the Final Four started with an 85-68 win over San Francisco in the first round. They went to beat Arkansas in the second round by six points. The sweet 16 saw Utah beating West Virginia by three points in Anaheim and the Elite 8 was a historic win over Arizona and they beat them by 25! They would then head to San Antonio and play in the historic Alamodome in the Final Four and they beat #1 North Carolina with Antwan Jamison. They won by six points. Then the National Championship game, they lost to Kentucky by nine points.
Rick Majerus had some great players led by Andre Miller who averaged 14.2 PPG, 5.4 RPG and 5.2 APG. Michael Doleac was the leading scorer with 16.1 PPG and 7.1 RPG. Hanno Mottola added 12.5 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. Current Utah Jazz assistant coach Alex Jensen was a great big to go along with Doleac.
Hanno Mottola joined the Bill Riley Show to talk about the memories of this team and the reunion on Saturday.
Former players that will be here for the reunion include: David Jackson, Jordie McTavish, Hanno Mottola, Trace Caton, Ryan Hackett, Andre Miller, Britton Johnson, Drew Hansen, Greg Barratt, Alex Jensen, Michael Doleac, Jaco Noel, Nate Althoff, Zac Dalton, Brandon Sluga, Brian Bolinder and Gerald Fisher.
