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For real? Roadrunners storm past the St. Mary’s Rattlers, 90-38

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Jordyn Jenkins. The UTSA women's basketball team beat St. Mary's 90-38 in an exhibition game on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, at the Convocation Center. - Photo by Joe Alexander

Jordyn Jenkins scored 23 points on 10 of 11 shooting from the field to lead the UTSA Roadrunners to an easy exhibition victory. – Photo by Joe Alexander

By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

UTSA women’s basketball fans on Friday night arrived at the Convocation Center, eager to catch their first glimpse of a team with high expectations for the new season.

They apparently liked what they saw.

Showing off talent up and down the roster, the Roadrunners stormed to a 90-38 exhibition victory over the NCAA Division II St. Mary’s Rattlers.

Cheyenne Rowe. The UTSA women's basketball team beat St. Mary's 90-38 in an exhibition game on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, at the Convocation Center. - Photo by Joe Alexander

Cheyenne Rowe came off the bench to score 17 points on six of seven shooting. – Photo by Joe Alexander

Forwards Jordyn Jenkins scored 23 points and Cheyenne Rowe 17 for UTSA, a team that rode an 18-15 record all the way to the second round of the WNIT last March.

Coach Karen Aston was pleased with the effort to kick off the new year.

“Just happy to be playing again,” Aston said. “I think that’s the consensus probably for everyone, just excited to be back on the court again, to be back in the Convo. The players were ready to play someone else, for sure.”

Not only was Jenkins as good as advertised, but big performances off the bench from three post players — Rowe, freshman Taylor Ross and transfer Nyayongah Gony — left fans with the impression that the Roadrunners might be better than ever in Aston’s fourth season as coach.

“I think people are excited about our team,” Aston said. “I think they’re looking forward to the season starting. I hear it all the time. The fans that stuck around last year and came to the WNIT game, I think they were looking forward to our team this year, and I think the fans probably feel the same way we do, like it’s going to be a fun ride.”

Playing against smaller players in the paint, the UTSA posts enjoyed a big night. Particularly Jenkins, who hit 10 of 11 shots from the field to lead the Roadrunners to a 51.5 percent shooting performance. Rowe also was efficient by hitting six of seven afield.

Taylor Ross. The UTSA women's basketball team beat St. Mary's 90-38 in an exhibition game on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, at the Convocation Center. - Photo by Joe Alexander

Freshman Taylor Ross had 15 points and 10 rebounds in her first college game.– Photo by Joe Alexander.

Ross, from San Antonio’s Brennan High School, emerged with a double-double in her first college game, producing 15 points and 10 rebounds.

Shooting the ball well, she muscled inside to hit four of five from the floor. Rebounding with a purpose, she also pulled down five of her boards off the offensive glass.

Gony, a transfer from Mississippi State who has also played at Miami, showed a wide variety of skills and produced 10 points, five rebounds and a blocked shot.

Standing 6-feet-4 and moving well on quick feet, she had the crowd buzzing a few times in the first half with eye-opening sequences.

On one play, she made a catch on a long pass and scored well in front of retreating defenders. On a few others, she’d either grab a rebound or force a turnover and then start dribbling up the floor.

It’s not something that UTSA fans have seen very often, if at all, someone that tall who can make a defensive stop on one end and then take off on a few dribbles to the other end of the court.

Overall, the Roadrunners just kept sending waves of long and talented athletes at the Rattlers.

Sidney Love. The UTSA women's basketball team beat St. Mary's 90-38 in an exhibition game on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, at the Convocation Center. - Photo by Joe Alexander

UTSA junior Sidney Love produced six points, five assists and three rebounds. – Photo by Joe Alexander

“We’ve talked about playing with more length and more active bodies that we could throw at teams for an entire game or for a majority of the game, which I think could be a positive for a lot of reasons,” Aston said.

She likes the concept because, she said, more players get to play and get involved in the game. Also, because the pressure can wear down an opponent.

“I love teams that can do that,” Aston said. “We haven’t had that here until this year. I think if everybody stays healthy and we stay on the same page, we can probably try to implement this more and more as the season goes along.”

For St. Mary’s, guard Charli Graziano came off the bench to score eight points, including a couple of three-point buckets. For the most part, UTSA’s defense stifled St. Mary’s, limiting the Rattlers to 11 field goals and 27.5 percent shooting.

UTSA will play at Texas A&M next Thursday to open the regular season.

Notable

UTSA center Idara Udo came out of the game late in the first quarter when she took contact and fell to the floor. She left the court limping and later sat on the bench with an ice bag on her knee.

In all, the Roadrunners played 14 players and 11 of them scored. Sophomore guard Aysia Proctor was the only one on the roster not to get into the game.

Guard Nina De Leon Negron, a newcomer and a transfer from Incarnate Word, started and produced four points and four assists.

Nyayongah Gony. The UTSA women's basketball team beat St. Mary's 90-38 in an exhibition game on Friday, Nov. 1, 2024, at the Convocation Center. - Photo by Joe Alexander

Six-foot-four forward Nyayongah Gony raised eyebrows with a variety of skills, including the ability to bring the ball up court on the dribble. The Mississippi State transfer had 10 points and five rebounds and a blocked shot. – Photo by Joe Alexander

Making a statement? Ross finishes UTSA workout with a 3-point shooting flourish

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

Taylor Ross, a UTSA freshman from Brennan High School, showed off her long-distance shooting touch in a drill at the end of Monday’s practice. – File photo by Joe Alexander

By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

I’ve seen the UTSA women’s basketball team practice probably a half a dozen times since July, and it seems like each time I come out to watch at the Convocation Center, a different player catches my attention.

Four months ago, a few days before the 4th of July holiday, I remember a workout that featured UIW transfer and point guard Nina De Leon Negron running the court and setting up the offense with slick ball handling and passing.

I noticed her touch passes into the paint, right on Jordyn Jenkins’ fingertips.

Later on, it was junior guard Siena Guttadauro, a returning player who didn’t see the floor much last season, coming on strong with confident play in the backcourt. In addition, I also remember Mississippi State transfer Nyayongah Gony.

The lithe, 6-foot-4 post seemed a bit out of synch on my first trip to campus. But slowly, step by step, she started to get better and better. In the last two or three workouts in a row that I’ve witnessed, Gony stood out with her speed, defensive agility and rebounding.

She was good again on Monday when she’d sprint in drills with multiple players on the floor, each of them combining to push the ball from end to end with long passes, all in an effort to get as many layups as possible in a certain amount of time.

Finally, as the workout was winding down, another player popped up on my radar. Six-foot-one freshman Taylor Ross drilled her first attempt in a three-point shooting drill. The shot looked smooth, so I kept my eye on her.

Pretty sure she knocked down five threes in a row, from different angles, before missing her last two. Other players seemed to have a pretty good rhythm, as well, with several knocking down triples from the corner, the wing and the top.

But it was Ross, a first-year college player from San Antonio’s Brennan High School, who seemed to have it really going on, perhaps trying to make a statement.

Playing power forward on a talented team, Ross is battling behind the likes of Jenkins, a preseason all-conference pick, and Gony, who has experience at both the University of Miami and Mississippi State, so finding playing time for her might be a challenge.

At least, initially.

“It’s going to take her awhile to get used to the speed of the game and the physicality, but she’s one we’re super excited about,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said. “She does have a lot of versatility, and she can stretch the floor at that four (position).

“I think she’s going to learn a lot from playing with someone as experienced as Jordyn.”

Last season, the Roadrunners were a team that excelled with their defense and their rebounding. They ranked among the national leaders in both categories in finishing 18-15 and making it all the way to the WNIT quarterfinals.

This year, Aston will demand excellence on the defensive end, as she always does, but it might be unfair to expect them to be as good as last year on that end of the floor.

Last season, with center Elyssa Coleman patrolling the paint and Kyra White on the perimeter, UTSA shut down opponents, holding them to 64 points and 36 percent shooting. Both players have moved on in their careers, leaving the Roadrunners to search for a new identity.

Could they find it with more proficient perimeter shooting? Based on early reports, they have a chance.

“I think we’ll possibly hit the three a little bit better,” Aston said. “Maybe (we’ll) be a little more versatile. I think our post players have created a little more range in their shooting. They’ve gotten to a place where they’re a little more confident facing up to the basket than they were last year.”

In the frontcourt, both Jenkins and Idara Udo seem capable of hitting from distances beyond where they have shot in the past. Jenkins hit some from three last year after she returned from knee rehabilitation, and she looks comfortable again from that distance.

In the backcourt, freshman shooting guard Aysia Proctor did the most damage for the Roadrunners last season, making a team-high 40 triples on 38.5 percent.

But this year, she should have help from the other guards, namely point guards Guttadauro, De Leon Negron and Sidney Love.

Guttadauro, a 5-6 junior from San Jose, Calif., might have the most upside potential to get hot and sink the long ball in bunches, but all three can hit it. In addition, freshmen Damara Allen and Mia Hammonds have both shown flashes, as well.

Last year, the Roadrunners struggled mightily from the three-point line. They shot 29.4 percent to rank 11th in the American Athletic Conference and 240th out of some 360 teams in NCAA Division I.

“We’ve emphasized it a lot,” Aston said. “We have spent a lot more time on it … quite a bit more time than I have in the past, in practice. But, you know, they got to show up and do it in a game.”

Notable

UTSA will host San Antonio’s St. Mary’s University Rattlers, a Division II program, on Friday night in its one and only exhibition. Tipoff is at 6:30 p.m. at the Convocation Center. The Roadrunners will open the regular season on Nov. 7 at Texas A&M.