Utah’s season felt like it had been dealt a final blow two weeks ago in the Pac-12 Tournament. The Utes’ NCAA Tournament hopes, which had grown increasingly realistic, all of a sudden popped like a balloon. However, they have managed to let what happened in Las Vegas stay right there.
Utah has continued to make postseason memories, though not in the setting it had initially envisioned, by earning a spot in the NIT semifinals at Madison Square Garden in New York next week. The program last advanced this far in the NIT in 1992.
“It’s a great feeling just knowing that as a group we accomplished something that’s pretty special,” Utes junior guard Sedrick Barefield said as the team traveled back from California on Thursday.