By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
First-year UTSA basketball coach Austin Claunch is a man with a clear vision for his program.
Despite three straight seasons of 20-plus losses under the previous staff, the 34-year-old former Houston schoolboy announced at his introductory news conference back in April that, one day, he hopes to help his players cut down the nets to celebrate a Roadrunners championship.
Coach Austin Claunch has vowed that his first team at UTSA will play with physicality and toughness. — Photo by Joe Alexander
It’s a compelling notion, all right. But that doesn’t mean that such an outcome can happen in instantaneous fashion. In an interview Tuesday afternoon, only a few weeks into fall semester workouts, Claunch fielded a question about what type of identity his team might have and how good he thought UTSA could be in his first season.
“Listen,” he said, “I’ve got practice in the next five minutes. It’s hard for me to say. It’s hard for me to say, ‘How good can we be?’ Our goal is to come out and win every single game. Obviously we’re a long way from that. You know, we’ve got to build.”
Claunch sounded much more certain about what type of style the Roadrunners would play.
“Our identity is going to be (as) a team that comes out and really, really (competes),” he said. “I think you’re going to be impressed with how hard we compete and how hard we play and how together we are from a toughness standpoint. I mean, it’s got to start with that.”
Despite his age, Claunch comes to UTSA with a championship pedigree. He made a name for himself as a head coach at Nicholls State University, where he won a pair of Southland Conference regular-season titles, and then spent last season as an assistant on the staff at Alabama, a team that advanced to the NCAA Final Four.
Soon after arriving in San Antonio in April, the coach assembled a staff and went to work re-stocking the UTSA talent-base. By July, he announced a 13-man roster, including 12 transfers. At the time, seven of those transfers were from power conference programs. In addition, two players came from programs that played in the NCAA tournament.
Now, a little more than two weeks away from the start of official fall practices, the Roadrunners find themselves grinding away. Claunch acknowledged that they might be a work in progress. In regard to both offensive and defensive execution, much needs to be fine-tuned.
But one thing is a certainty as far as the coach is concerned — UTSA will play with physical style. “We’re going to embrace protecting the rim,” Claunch said. “I can tell you that. We’re going to certainly embrace protecting the rim. Sometimes with shot blocking. Sometimes with just our ability to stay in front of the ball.”
On offense, the coach vowed that the Roadrunners would play with pace and play efficiently.
“You know, we’re going to share it,” he said. “We want to score a lot of points, and you don’t do that with just one guy scoring 30 every night. Now we have a lot of talent. We have a lot of guys that can shoot.
“So we’ve got to get that ball moving and share it on the other end,” Claunch added. “We want a lot of assisted shots. But more than anything, what’s important to me, is having a team that represents what UTSA and what San Antonio is all about, which is that toughness and that ability to show … consistency every day, and fight through adversity.”
Njie joins UTSA
The Roadrunners have added 6-foot-11 center Mo Njie to join the program while also acknowledging that 6-7 forward Jesus Carralero Martin is no longer on the team.
Njie joins the Roadrunners following two seasons with the SMU Mustangs, for whom he played in 38 games. At 6-foot-11, 250 pounds, the Centerville, Ohio big man started his career at Eastern Michigan.
Carralero Martin was announced as part of Claunch’s 12-man signing class in July. He played last season at Missouri and before that, four years at Campbell.
Texas Tough
Claunch said that the coaches are keeping track of what he calls “Texas Tough” points. “We calculate that every single day,” the coach said, “for deflections, steals, rebounds, taking charges, whatever the case may be.”
So far, Raekwon Horton and Primo Spears have set the pace in that regard.
“One thing I don’t ever worry about with this team is playing hard,” Claunch said. “We are as competitive as any group I’ve ever been around. And so, the first two days of the preseason workouts, Raekwon Horton won the first day and Primo Spears won the second day, and I would say those two have been, pretty consistent with that.”
Spears has been one of the team’s top performers through the summer and into fall practices. Known as an explosive offensive player in past seasons at Duquesne, Georgetown and Florida State, the Connecticut native has also excelled on the defensive end in early practices at UTSA.
“I tell you what,” Claunch said. “He really guards the ball, too. He can really, really guard.”
Horton, a 6-foot-6 wing from Santee, S.C., has played in the NCAA tournament in each of the past two seasons at the College of Charleston and, most recently, at James Madison.
“Raekwon … has a knack for the ball,” Claunch said. “It’s no surprise he’s been at places that have won and gone to NCAA tournaments. You can see that he sort of has that way about him. And then Primo, too. I think those two guys certainly bring an edge every single day.
“But other guys have (done that) as well. I think our toughness and competitiveness is really good, top to bottom.”