UVU men’s Basketball Coach Mark Madsen has garnered national attention for the season that he and the Wolverine’s men’s basketball team put together, most recently being featured in USA Today. Dan Wolken of USA Today published an article titled Former NBA player Mark Madsen trying to do a different kind of dance with Utah Valley on March 9.
“Though Utah Valley had some success in the past under Dick Hunsaker and Mark Pope, who left in 2019 to go across town and take over at BYU, Madsen has led the program to its best-ever season in Division I at an interesting time,” Wolken wrote.
Madsen is no stranger to the spotlight, as he averaged 8.7 ppg on 58.7 FG% through 108 games played in his four-year career at Stanford University. He was taken with the 29th pick by the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2000 NBA Draft, where he won two NBA Championships in 2001 and 2002. After retirement, he spent six years as a Lakers assistant coach before taking the head coaching position at Utah Valley University.
In the article, Wolken wrote of the expectations of a UVU NCAA Tournament appearance and the likelihood of such an occurrence. Despite the Wolverines’ eventual elimination from the WAC Tournament and NCAA Tournament consideration, there was an abundance of buzz surrounding the possibility.
“‘I wish people came up to me and said, ‘You were a great player,’ ” Madsen said during a phone conversation last week. “But no. They want to talk about one thing only: The dance,’” Madsen told USA Today.
Although the Wolverines ultimately fell short of the big dance, Madsen has had an immediate impact at UVU, going 43-19 over the past two years and this year leading UVU to a historic 26-win season, the most ever in the university’s history. He was also awarded NABC District 6 Coach of the Year and USBWA District VIII Coach of the Year for this season. Although there is talk of Madsen being “poached” by a larger program, he signed an extension in 2021 that secured him with the university until the end of the 2025-26 season.
View the full article from USAToday here.
