UTSA might be missing a couple of players tonight against Rice

Editor’s note: UTSA might be without two players against the Rice Owls tonight. Starting guard Sidney Love came out of the dressing room in a sweat suit. Reserve forward Nyayongah Gony is also not on the floor.

By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

After playing their first 14 games at a high level and receiving attention from media outlets around the city, does the UTSA women’s basketball team need to guard against a mental letdown? Roadrunners coach Karen Aston isn’t worried about it.

Damara Allen. UTSA women's basketball at the Convocation Center on Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. - photo by Joe Alexander

Freshman Damara Allen is one of the team’s young players vying for an expanded role. Allen scored 11 points off the bench in UTSA’s last home game. – File photo by Joe Alexander

“I don’t feel like we’ll have a letdown just, from a sense of, I mean, our team is pretty locked in right now,” Aston said on a zoom call with reporters Monday.

Locked in, is right. The Roadrunners (12-2, 3-0 in the American Athletic Conference) are having the best start to a season in school history. Riding a five-game winning streak, they’ll host the defending AAC tournament champion Rice Owls (8-6, 1-1) tonight at the Convocation Center.

Aston said maturity is a hallmark of this year’s team.

“It’s an evolution for players,” she said. “You know, what I’ve really enjoyed about this group is having four players that have been here with me almost the whole time, just about. Now they’re juniors and they really understand the process of everything, and I think it develops maturity when you have players who stick around. They understand what you want of them.

“They don’t take things (personally) because they probably at this point have a really good relationship with you. They stuck around and they understand what they’re trying to get accomplished. It’s not necessarily that we have a different mindset (from last year). I think we wanted to win last year really bad. And I think we overachieved. But this team is just a little bit more mature.”

Records

Rice 8-6, 1-1
UTSA 12-2, 3-0

Coming up

Rice at UTSA, tonight, 6:30
Wichita State at UTSA, Saturday, noon

Notable

The Owls made a name for themselves under coach Lindsay Edmonds last March. After losing five in a row to end the regular season, including a loss to UTSA in San Antonio on the last day, they responded by winning four games in four days in Fort Worth to claim the AAC postseason title, securing the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

As a No. 14 seed in the NCAA first round, they lost 70-60 to third-seeded LSU.

This season, the Owls have turned the page with the graduation of veteran point guard Destiny Jackson. But they have most of their personnel back, including standouts Malia Fisher, a 6-2 forward, and guards Dominique Ennis and Hailey Adams.

Fisher sat out the first eight games with a wrist injury, but she has returned to lead the team, averaging 12.5 points and 6.2 rebounds. In Rice’s last game, a 72-64 victory at Tulane last weekend, Fisher had 21 points, eight rebounds and four assists.

Ennis averages 11.6 points and Adams, a sophomore from San Antonio Clark High School, contributes 8.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.9 assists. Adams is also a shot blocker, averaging 1.1 per game.

“I think they look really similar (to last year),” Aston said. “They look like a team that understands what it takes to win. They’re always super competitive, well coached. They look very similar. They do what they do and they do it well.”

NET rankings

Here are the top-rated teams in AAC women’s basketball, according to the NCAA’s NET rankings: UTSA (59), South Florida (64), Tulane (94), Temple (102), Rice (128).

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