Utah basketball has lost another assistant coach

The coaching carousel for the Utah men’s basketball program is continuing to spin.

Earlier this week, South Dakota State announced that it has hired former Runnin’ Utes assistant coach Tramel Barnes to the same position.

Barnes’ departure means that Utah will have new coaches in all three of its primary assistant coach slots this fall after Chris Burgess left for BYU and DeMarlo Slocum departed for Washington.

Both Burgess and Slocum will be assistant coaches at their new locations, with Burgess joining new BYU head coach Kevin Young and Slocum joining former Utah State head coach and new Washington head coach Danny Sprinkle.

On paper, Runnin’ Utes head coach Craig Smith has done a good job replacing Burgess and Slocum, as he first hired Lo Leath, a former assistant at Sacramento State with strong recruiting connections in California, and then added Josh Eilert, a longtime member of the coaching staff at West Virginia who was the program’s interim head coach last season.

As for Barnes, the move marks a return to South Dakota State, where he was an assistant coach from 2019-2021. In 2021 he joined Utah’s staff and was the director of player personnel until being promoted to assistant coach before last season.

Currently, Tyler Larson and Jayden Olson hold titles of assistant coach with the Runnin’ Utes along with titles of director of player personnel and director of recruiting, respectively.