By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The UTSA Roadrunners built a 17-point lead in the first half and then withstood a Rice Owls rally after intermission to post a 90-84 road victory Tuesday night in American Athletic Conference men’s basketball.

“Huge win for us tonight,” UTSA coach Austin Claunch said on the team’s radio broadcast.

Guard Primo Spears led the Roadrunners with 26 points and five assists. Guard Marcus Millender came off the bench to score 25 for his second straight game with 20 or more. Forward Raekwon Horton also continued his strong play with 20 points and eight rebounds.

The victory felt like an inflection point, of sorts, for the Roadrunners. A team that has struggled away from home this season has now improved to 2-6 on the road.

It also marked the Roadrunners’ second straight win in the AAC after starting conference with two losses, including a 29-point setback at Tulane and a five-point decision at home to Tulsa after leading by 16 in the second half.

In addition, the Roadrunners’ offense has come to life with 178 points in the team’s last two games, including an 88-75 home victory last Saturday against Wichita State. Against the Shockers, the Roadrunners hit 50 percent from the field and from the 3-point arc.

It’s always tougher to shoot the ball on the road, but the Roadrunners did it pretty well against the Owls, who have showed off a rugged defensive style this year. UTSA shot 46.2 percent from the field and 41.9 percent from three against the Owls.

Not only did the Roadrunners hit 13 three-point shots, but they also made nearly all of their free throws, knocking down 17 of 18, including eight for eight in the last 25 seconds after the Owls had cut the lead to five.

An emotional Claunch, sitting down with Andy Everett on the team’s postgame radio show, praised the team’s composure at the end.

“On the road you got to expect they’re going to make a run,” Claunch said. “(They’re) a really, really well-coached team. They’re obviously much improved. Coach (Rob Lanier) is going to get it going. You can tell. They play with extreme fight, toughness. They attack the rim. And I was just proud of our team.”

In the first half, the Roadrunners blitzed the Owls with defense that forced turnovers, which led to a fast-paced tempo. Trailing by eight early, the Roadrunners surged into a 51-34 lead with a little less than two minutes remaining.

Undeterred, the Owls kept battling. They scored the last seven points in the first half to pull within 10. In the second half, they started playing more to their own tempo and gradually pulled into a 62-61 lead with 10 minutes left on two free throws by forward Jacob Dar.

On the next possession, UTSA ran good offense and dumped it down to forward Jo Smith for a dunk to re-take the lead. Millender then scored seven points in a row for the Roadrunners in a 9-2 run that opened the advantage to 70-64 with 7:47 left.

With Spears and Millender making plays, the Owls never came closer than three points the rest of the way. For Millender, who played in high school at Clear Brook in Houston-area Friendswood, it was special. He was able to put on a show for dozens of people who came out to watch him play.

“It was super fun tonight,” Millender said.

Millender, a UTSA sophomore, scored 21 points against Wichita State to tie a season high and then set a new one against Rice. His play after the Owls took the lead in the second half was clutch.

Millender just looked comfortable, sinking a 14-foot jumper to start his run. Next, he added a three from the top of the circle. On that basket, an Owls defender ran past him trying to defend. Millender let the defender go by, took one bounce with the ball and drilled the trey.

On UTSA’s next trip down, he worked to the left side of the key and sank a 15-foot fade-away over an outstretched hand to make it 70-64.

“We hit a little adversity,” Millender said, “and coach tells us all the time, ‘Just stay together. Stay together.’ Coach told us in the huddle ‘just stay together, and we going to come out with the dub.”

Guard Trae Broadnax led the Owls with 19 points, six rebounds and six assists. Forward Alem Huseinovic added 12, while both Dar and Caden Powell scored 11 each. Dar was a factor in many ways, as he contributed six rebounds, two assists and two blocked shots. Denver Anglin added nine points off the bench, all from beyond the arc on three-for-eight shooting from distance.

Records

UTSA 8-8, 2-2
Rice 11-7, 2-3

Coming up

North Texas at UTSA, Saturday, 3 p.m.

First half

Trailing by eight points early, the UTSA Roadrunners settled down, started forcing turnovers and rolled to a 51-41 lead on the Rice Owls.

In the game played in Houston at Rice’s Tudor Fieldhouse, the Roadrunners looked a bit tentative in the early going, falling behind 15-7 in the first five minutes.

After a timeout, the Roadrunners started to bother the Owls with their defense and several UTSA players got hot on the offensive end in a fast-paced attack.

By intermission, UTSA was shooting 50 percent from the field and 53 percent from the 3-point arc. Primo Spears led the way with 14 points, while Raekwon Horton and Marcus Millender had 13 apiece.

For the second straight game, Millender came off the bench, and the strategy worked with the UTSA perimeter players in synch and playing with confidence.

Spears was 5 for 11 from the field and 4 for 4 from the free throw line. Millender, Horton and Damari Monsanto all knocked down three 3-point shots.

The Roadrunners pumped the lead to 17 points twice down the stretch, the last time at 51-34 on a couple of Spears free throws.

The Owls climbed back in contention with seven straight points down the stretch — all by Alem Huseinovic. Huseinovic led the Owls in the first half with 10 points. He hit two of five from the 3-point arc.

By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

Two Texas-based men’s college basketball programs, both looking to gain traction in the American Athletic Conference under new coaches, will meet Tuesday night in Houston when the UTSA Roadrunners play the Rice Owls at Tudor Fieldhouse.

Both UTSA and Rice, entering their second year in the AAC, are coming off disappointing seasons in which they won only five conference games Both UTSA and Rice went 5-13 in the American a year ago and responded by overhauling their coaching staffs.

The Roadrunners said goodbye to Steve Henson and hello to Austin Claunch. The Owls, meanwhile, parted ways with Scott Pera and then hired Rob Lanier.

Both Claunch and Lanier have been tasked with the same charge — to bolster sagging hoops fortunes at universities separated by about 200 miles of highway on Interstate 10.

As far as NCAA tournament appearances go, Rice hasn’t been to one since 1970, one of the longest droughts in Division I, while UTSA’s last trip was 2011.

Records

UTSA 7-8, 1-2
Rice 11-6, 2-2

Coming up

UTSA at Rice, Tuesday, 7 p.m.
North Texas at UTSA, Saturday, 3 p.m.

Notable

Lanier’s Owls started 11-4 and 2-0 in the conference, opening the first week of January with a 70-64 AAC road win at Tulsa and then returning home to beat the Charlotte 49ers, 68-55.

Last week, they stumbled, getting blown out 81-59 at North Texas last Wednesday and then coming home to play close against Temple, only to fall 73-70 in the final seconds.

Claunch, whose team played at a high level for the most part last week but came out of it 1-1, said it won’t be easy to win in Houston.

“Every week (in the AAC) is tough,” he said on a Monday zoom call. “Ultimately, now, we’ve got to go on the road against a good Rice team that’s 2-2 in league. They lost a tough one (to Temple) the other day. So we got to be ready to go and execute and play how we’ve been playing.

“And then we come home and play not just a good team but a great program with North Texas that’s had a ton of success over the past few years. Big week for us. We just got to put our heads down and keep working.”

The Roadrunners opened conference play on Jan. 4 at Tulane and suffered their most lopsided loss of the season, a 92-63. Returning home, they hosted Tulsa and had the Golden Hurricane down by 16 points early in the second half, only to squander the lead and fall 82-77.

Playing at home again last weekend, the Roadrunners put together defense and offense as well as they have all season and downed the Wichita State Shockers, 88-75. An extremely promising sign was that they tallied their most points against a Division I team with leading scorer Primo Spears held to only eight.

Big man update
The Roadrunners are playing short-handed in the frontcourt. Six-foot-eight power forward Jaquan Scott hasn’t played in six of UTSA’s last seven games. He’s been away for the last two attending to a family matter. In addition, 6-11 center Mo Njie has missed four straight with a foot injury.

By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The victories just keep on coming for the UTSA women, even without one of their best players on the floor.

On a night when Sidney Love sat out with an illness, Jordyn Jenkins produced 21 points and 14 rebounds, leading the UTSA Roadrunners to their sixth straight victory, a 67-58 decision over the Rice Owls Wednesday at the Convocation Center.

In winning their ninth in a row at home dating back to last season, UTSA improved to a school-record 13-2 and to 4-0 in the American Athletic Conference.

Led by a couple of strong and mobile post players, the Owls led by as many as nine points in the second quarter and by five at intermission.

They were up by six after three periods and by six with 7:54 remaining, but they couldn’t hold on as the Roadrunners exploded past them, 24-9, in the fourth.

“The best thing I can say about this game is that we showed some resilience,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said. “It wasn’t by any means our best performance. I think we’ll take some things from this game. We had a lot of young guys in the game. (Now) we actually have film to show them and have some teaching moments.”

Fourth quarter magic

For the second straight time in a game at home for the Roadrunners, they fell behind in the fourth quarter and rallied to win.

They did it on New Year’s night in a 67-56 victory over the UAB Blazers. Against UAB, UTSA trailed by one twice early in the fourth and then rumbled to the win behind Jenkins, who scored nine points in the period on four of five shooting.

Things looked a little more dire for the Roadrunners against the Owls when Sussy Ngulefac muscled inside for a basket and a 53-47 Rice lead with 7:54 remaining. From there, UTSA outscored Rice 20-5 the rest of the way.

Highlights of a 20-5 run

# A sequence in which Jenkins hit a jumper on one end, forced a turnover on the other, and then hit a three at 6:40 that gave UTSA its first lead (by one) in the period.
# An offensive rebound in traffic by the 5-foot-6 De Leon Negron, who drew a foul and sank two free throws at 5:41 for another one-point UTSA lead.
# A struggle under the UTSA basket that ended with both Jenkins and Rice’s Hailey Adams hitting the floor — and fouls called on both players.

# Moments later, consecutive buckets by De Leon Negron, the second of which came on a drive through traffic to put UTSA up by four at 2:06.
# And, finally, a blocked shot by Idara Udo that led to a three-point basket by freshman Damara Allen for the final points of the game at 0:28.3.

A crowd of fewer than 1,000 fans roared for Allen and the Roadrunners, who continue to inspire championship hopes with the best start after 15 games in the program’s 44-year history.

As usual, Jenkins was at the center of it all. She keyed the late rally by scoring seven of her 21 points in the final eight minutes. In that time, she hit three of four from the field, grabbed four rebounds and had a steal.

Afterward, she praised Allen, who also had seven points in the rally. Jenkins said she isn’t surprised that the freshman is playing well, noting that she started making noise in practices as far back as last summer.

Jenkins smiled when asked about her fall to the floor and the double foul call down the stretch. She said of the Owls, “They’re trying to take me out of the game. But I love the physicality. Bring it on.”

Records

Rice 8-7, 1-2
UTSA 13-2, 4-0

Coming up

Wichita State at UTSA, Saturday, noon

Individuals

Rice – Forward Sussy Ngulefac hit seven of 11 shots and scored 16 points to lead the Owls. Forward Malia Fisher, one of the Rice veterans who played a major role in last year’s run to the NCAA tournament, had 14 points and six boards. Guard Dominique Ennis, another returning starter from Rice’s AAC tournament title team, scored 11.

UTSA – Jenkins, who scored 30 in a victory at Tulsa on Saturday, shot seven of 18 from the field and came up big in the fourth quarter with seven points and four rebounds. De Leon Negron had 19 points, eight rebounds and five assists. Freshman Damara Allen, who started at shooting guard in place of Love, scored all seven of her points in the final quarter, hitting three for three from the field.

Notable

Playing without Love, the Roadrunners started slowly. The Owls held the Roadrunners to 13 points in the first quarter en route to a 36-31 lead at halftime.

Ngulefac led the Owls with 10 points in the half, while De Leon Negron had 11 to pace the Roadrunners.

A spokesman said Love didn’t play because she was ‘feeling under the weather.’ Coach Karen Aston said she didn’t know if Love would play Saturday against Wichita State. The junior from Steele sat on the bench in a sweat suit.

Another key player, reserve forward Nyayongah Gony, also did not play. Gony wasn’t on the bench during the game or on the floor for warmups. The team’s spokesman said he didn’t know why she didn’t play.

As for Saturday’s opponent, the Wichita State Shockers fell to 7-10 on the season and 1-3 in conference after getting blow out at home, 72-46, by the surging South Florida Bulls.

South Florida is 11-6 and tied for first in the AAC with UTSA at 4-0.

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.

“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).