Just Missed Glory: The 1998 Utah Jazz & Utah Utes

The state of Utah isn’t the first place that comes to mind when it comes to sports. Having only one professional team, the NBA’s Utah Jazz, will do that, even if the state does have successful college programs in both basketball and football. 1998 saw Utah hit both its high and its low in basketball. At the college level, the Utah Utes made a run to the NCAA championship game. The Jazz made the NBA Finals. That was the high. The low was that each just missed on a ring, and did so to opponents who had already become aggravating to the basketball faithful in the state. TheSportsNotebook looks back on what it was to be a college basketball in NBA fan in the state of Utah in 1998…