Monthly Archives: February 2026

Last-place UAB women surge past defending champion UTSA

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The last-place UAB Blazers shot 64 percent in a dominant third quarter in Birmingham on Tuesday night and then cruised to an 81-69 victory over the UTSA Roadrunners in American Conference women’s basketball.

Leading by five at the half, UAB (9-13, 2-8) went on an 18-4 run in the first five minutes after halftime and outscored UTSA 27-14 in the third behind the scoring of Cali Smallwood and freshman Sofia Munoz.

In the end, the Blazers’ 81 points represented a season high for a UTSA opponent.

With the win, Randy Norton-coached UAB claimed its second victory in a row and its first in the opening game of the second half of the conference slate. Defense-minded UTSA (10-11, 5-5) yielded 56 percent shooting for the game in losing its second straight.

The defending conference champion Roadrunners, who opened conference play at 3-0, have dropped five of their last seven.

The last two Roadrunners’ losses have come in the last four days. UTSA dropped a 65-55 decision to the first-place Rice Owls on Saturday in San Antonio and then had a quick turnaround for the Tuesday night game in Alabama.

UTSA will play next on Saturday in Oklahoma against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane, an upper-tier team in the conference. The Golden Hurricane (16-6, 8-2) also played Tuesday night and won on the road at Wichita State, 75-65.

“It’s not going to get any easier,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said on the team’s radio broadcast. “I thought that this whole time, that every game was going to be like this, and it’s going to boil down to … ‘How hungry are you?’ and, ‘How bad do you want to win? Does it mean that much to you?’

“I mean, everybody (in the conference) is fighting, just to get in the tournament. You know, maybe we’ve hit a lull. I don’t really know. We looked like maybe we’ve hit a little bit of a wall. We got to figure out how to re-energize ourselves.”

Aston acknowledged that she doesn’t really have an answer on how to get the team to boost its energy level.

“We just don’t look like we have enough gas in our tank right now,” she said.

Forward Molly Moffitt led six UAB players in double figures with 19 points. Smallwood added 15 and Journey Armstead 13. Eleecia Carter scored 12, while Monae’ Duffy and Munoz had 11 apiece.

For UTSA, point guard Ereauna Hardaway produced 17 points and five assists. Forward Cheyenne Rowe added 16, but after halftime, the Roadrunners’ scoring leader was hounded by a collapsing UAB defense and was held to five.

Idara Udo, in her third game back after sitting out six weeks with an injury, scored 12. The Roadrunners shot 41 percent from the field.

Records

UTSA 10-11, 5-5
UAB 9-13, 2-8

Coming up

UTSA at Tulsa, Saturday, 2 p.m.

First half

The Blazers shot 48.1 percent from the field and knocked down five 3-pointers en route to a 32-27 lead on the Roadrunners.

It was a disappointing showing for the Roadrunners, who entered the game in sixth place in the American against the Blazers, who were in last (13th).

Molly Moffitt and guard Eleecia Carter both scored nine points to lead the Blazers. Moffitt connected on four of nine from the field and Carter three of five, all from 3-point distance.

UTSA women to face a UAB team ‘feeling good about themselves’

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By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Fighting through the “dog days” of the American Conference schedule, the UTSA Roadrunners women are looking to find some consistency when they play on the road tonight against the last-place UAB Blazers.

The Roadrunners (10-10, 5-4) tip off against the Blazers (8-13, 1-8) at 6 p.m.

UTSA split two games at home last week, building a double-digit lead against North Texas and then holding on for a 66-64 victory and then playing on even terms for a half against first-place Rice before ultimately falling, 65-55.

“I thought last week was a good week for our team, obviously a good win against North Texas and then kind of equally disappointing against Rice,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said. “But we’re in the dog days now and we have to turn the page and get to the next game.”

Coach Randy Norton’s Blazers (8-13, 1-8) endured hard times to start their conference schedule with eight straight losses before playing well and winning 83-65 on the road last weekend at Wichita State.

Guard Cali Smallwood scored 25 points in the performance, knocking down seven of 12 shots from 3-point distance.

“Their record is not indicative of how they’ve played,” Aston said. “They had a new team and obviously had to find some chemistry and get used to conference play, so to say. But they had a big win on Saturday, and just to get that one over for them probably gave them a lot of confidence.

“I would think we’ll roll in there with them feeling pretty good about themselves.”

Records

UTSA 10-10, 5-4
UAB 8-13, 1-8

Coming up

UTSA at UAB, Tuesday, 6 p.m.
UTSA at Tulsa, Saturday, 2 p.m.

With a road test looming at South Florida, UTSA’s Claunch brushes off questions about his job

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UTSA coach Austin Claunch. Tulane beat UTSA 85-52 in American Conference men's basketball on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026, at the Convocation Center. - Photo by Joe Alexander

UTSA coach Austin Claunch dismisses the idea that he would like to turn the season around so that he can quiet speculation about his job status. Rather, he says he wants it as a reward for his players, who have worked hard enough to deserve it. – File photo by Joe Alexander

By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The questions for UTSA men’s basketball coach Austin Claunch keep getting tougher and tougher.

Even though his team played a more competitive brand of ball twice in the past 10 days, the Roadrunners lost twice at home, once by six points to Temple, and then by 10 to UAB, extending a troublesome, program-record losing streak to 14 games.

By the weekend, a story was published in the San Antonio Express-News that suggested his job might not be secure. Claunch, in the second year of a five-year contract, said Monday he wasn’t surprised to be asked about it.

“We’re in a competitive sport,” said the coach, who is 16-36 with the Roadrunners. “We’re at a high level (in the American Conference). Our expectation is to win, especially coming off (our first year). We thought we were really close. Where we were, I think we finished tied for ninth.

“But a lot of those games were in the balance. You felt like you were closer, in the middle of the pack (in the standings). Certainly, we felt like we did things in the offseason that put us in a position to take a step (forward), and so far we haven’t, right.”

After a 12-19 season a year ago, with a 6-12 record in the American, the Roadrunners are currently 4-17 and 0-9, respectively, going into the second half of the conference slate. It’s a nine-game stretch that starts with a road contest against the South Florida Bulls on Wednesday.

“For me, it’s all about figuring out how to improve where you are,” Claunch said. “At the end of the day, when you’ve lost however many we have in a row, and your record is where it is, you deserve to get those questions.

“Trust me, I hope everybody’s frustrated, fans … we want to win. We’re here to win and we’re here to win championships at UTSA. That goal is never going to change. So, that’s certainly still our goal. And, of course, we want that to happen right now.”

Claunch said he doesn’t take being the head coach of the Roadrunners lightly.

“It’s a privilege anywhere you’re a head coach in the country,” he said. “There’s only 365 of these things. So you better have an urgency every time you come in here, to figure out how to take the next step.”

The next step is figuring out how to slow down the high-scoring Bulls, now 14-8 and 6-3, who average a league-best 89 points per game.

Led by first-year coach Bryan Hodgson, the Bulls play a crowd-pleasing style. In conference, they have scored triple figures once, in a 109-106 double-overtime home loss to UAB, and they have twice notched 90 or more in wins at Tulsa and Tulane.

UTSA will travel with the second-longest active losing streak in the nation, but Claunch is a competitor, and he wants more than anything to lead off the second half of the conference slate with a victory.

Asked what it would mean to him, to win at South Florida a few days after he has fielded questions about whether he thinks he’ll be given a chance to return in his job next season, Claunch answered carefully. He said the South Florida game is not about him.

“I don’t think about it in terms of my job security,” Claunch said. “I think about it more for these (players). The way they’ve been working, they certainly deserve to finish the regular season on a high note. The way they’ve worked and continued to fight.

“And so, South Florida, North Texas, East Carolina, Wichita (State), whoever it is, we want to continue to work and win as many games as possible and see where that puts us here in the next nine games. It doesn’t really have anything to do with me.

“We knew that this was a process and we knew that we had an uphill battle. And, certainly, I love to coach. And I’m going to show up and be who I am every single day. Right? And these guys (the players) have done the same thing, which is why we believe their success for this program is right around the corner, in some way, shape or form.

“Whether that’s Wednesday or Saturday, whatever it is, these kids will deserve it, and that’s the biggest thing that I’m focused on and why we continue to work the way we do.”

Records

UTSA 4-17, 0-9
South Florida 14-8, 6-3

Coming up

UTSA at South Florida, Wednesday, 6 p.m.
North Texas at UTSA, Saturday, 1 p.m.

Notable

Last summer, after almost all of his roster entered the transfer portal, Claunch and his staff re-stocked the roster with 10 new scholarship athletes. Vasean Allette, the top player recruited out of the portal, has not played and is out for the year for personal reasons.

Three others, Macaleab Rich, Stanley Borden and Pierce Spencer, have all sat out long stretches of the season with injuries. Rich and Spencer are out for the season. With only half the conference slate to be played, Claunch said it’s possible Borden will be redshirted.