Huntsman Center taxing on many Utah opponents

From football, baseball and basketball to soccer, hockey and motor sports, millions of spectators are drawn annually to Utah's sporting events. However, casual observers may not have attended home games for Utah's many sports teams. The Deseret Morning News will be running an ongoing series of reports looking at many of the state's major sporting events, summarizing the spectator experience as to venue, atmosphere and cost.

Sorry, Delta Center and Marriott Center. Not quite, Dee Glen Smith Spectrum and Dee Events Center. When it comes to being the Mecca in the basketball-rich state of Utah, you can't beat the University of Utah's Jon M. Huntsman Center.

It's home to the Utah men's basketball team — the state's only program to win an NCAA hoops title and which was recently ranked No. 11 by Street and Smith's among the magazine's "Greatest College Basketball Teams of All Time."

Since its first game on Dec. 1, 1969 (christened the Special Events Center, prior to the age of corporate sponsorship of venue names), the Huntsman Center has provided the Utes a dominant homecourt advantage — a winning percentage in the mid-80s. In the last 16 seasons alone, Utah is 224-19 for a .922 percentage and is riding a 15-game home winning streak, 10th longest in the nation.

The Utes could post their eighth undefeated home-schedule season in the Huntsman's 35-year history, needing a win over San Diego State to clinch the home sweep. Utah has already powered past the rest of the Mountain West Conference at home as well as quality nonconference like LSU and Colorado. However, there have been plenty of preseason softies as well this year on the Huntsman court, including Stony Brook, Montana Western and Whitworth.

But there's more to college basketball at the Huntsman Center than the Utes alone.

The arena has played host to the NCAA tournament 12 times, with the 2006 sub-regionals next spring to be the Huntsman Center's 13th in a span of a little more than two decades. It ranks second to Kansas City's Municipal Auditorium — a facility nearly 40 years its senior — in all-time men's tournament games played, 75 and counting since 1971.

At the top of the Huntsman Center's postseason history is having hosted the 1979 NCAA Final Four, including the revered championship-game matchup, featuring Michigan State and Earvin "Magic" Johnson against Larry Bird-led Indiana State.

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'Take me out to the ball game'

TEAM: University of Utah men's basketball team