Utah Utes
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Utah Utes

The Utah Utes are the intercollegiate athletics teams that represent the University of Utah, located in Salt Lake City. The athletic department is named after the Ute tribe of Native Americans. The men's basketball team is known as the Runnin' Utes; the women's gymnastics team is known as the Red Rocks.

On August 4, 2023, Utah accepted an invite to join the Big 12 Conference effective August 2, 2024.

Formerly Utah competed in the Pac-12 Conference, after it was announced on June 17, 2010, that the Utes would join the conference in all sports, beginning in the 2011–2012 academic year. They are the third Pac-12 member to have previously spent time in the Western Athletic Conference (WAC), joining old conference rivals Arizona and Arizona State. They are also the first school to leave the Mountain West Conference (MW) since it was formed in 1999.

Utah offers a total of 19 varsity sports—seven for men, 11 for women, and one coeducational. Baseball, football, golf, and lacrosse are sponsored for men only. Beach volleyball, cross country, gymnastics, indoor track & field, indoor volleyball, outdoor track & field, soccer, and softball are sponsored for women only. Basketball, swimming & diving, and tennis are sponsored for both sexes. The coeducational sport is skiing; while schools have separate men's and women's squads, the NCAA awards a single national team championship. Utah's newest varsity sport is men's lacrosse, which played its first season in 2019 (2018–19 school year).

The baseball team is made up of 32 Division I players from across the country and the world. 14 players are from Utah, 8 from Arizona, 4 from California, 2 from Nevada, and 1 from Louisiana, Oregon, Idaho, and the Netherlands. The Utes call Smith's Ballpark their home field. Smith's Ballpark was previously known as Franklin Covey Field but was changed in 2009 to Spring Mobile Ballpark, and again in 2014 to its present name. Smith's Ballpark is also the home of the Salt Lake Bees, Triple-A affiliate of Major League Baseball's Los Angeles Angels. The Utes are departing Smith's Ballpark after the 2024 season for a new on-campus ballpark to be called America First Ballpark.

The Utah baseball team has won 1 Mountain West Conference Championship, occurring in 2009. This gave the Utes a regional berth for the first time since the 1960s. In the past 3 years Utah baseball has seen 6 of their players get drafted in the annual Major League Baseball draft, including C. J. Cron, first baseman for the Colorado Rockies.

The Runnin' Utes basketball program has the 9th-most wins among college basketball programs. The Utes have made 27 NCAA Tournament appearances, which ranks 7th all-time, while the Utes 10 outright conference championships (28 championships overall) is the 5th best in NCAA history. In March 2021, Craig Smith was named head coach of the Utes.

Andrew Bogut was selected #1 in the 2005 NBA draft by the Milwaukee Bucks, making the University of Utah the only school in NCAA history to produce the #1 draft pick in both the NBA and NFL in the same year (Alex Smith). Other notable players that have gone on to play in the NBA are Delon Wright, Andre Miller, Keith Van Horn, Michael Doleac, Danny Vranes and Tom Chambers. The Utes have also been coached by several top NCAA coaches, including Vadal Peterson – the winningest coach in Utah basketball history, hall of fame coach Jack Gardner, Bill Foster and Rick Majerus.

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