Update: With the American Conference women’s basketball tournament set to open Tuesday in Birmingham, Ala., the UTSA Roadrunners are seeded sixth, with a first-round bye. They will open play in Wednesday’s second round against either the No. 7 Temple Owls or the 10th-seeded Tulane Green Wave.
By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
Crazy things in college basketball tend to happen in March, and so it came to be on a Saturday afternoon in Houston, as the UTSA women built a 25-point lead in the third quarter and then held on, 61-52, snapping the Rice Owls’ 22-game winning streak.
For those following Roadrunners women’s basketball lately, it was a surprising development. Stunning, really.
Earlier in the week, on Wednesday night in San Antonio, the Roadrunners walked off the floor at home with their heads down, having lost 52-41 to the Tulsa Golden Hurricane.
UTSA’s fourth setback in five games left open the troubling question of just how far the team had fallen since it won a school-record 26 games and the 2025 American Conference regular-season title.
In the second quarter against Tulsa, the Roadrunners’ offense bottomed out, scoring only one point, shooting zero for 10 from the field and turning it over seven times.
Their 41 points represented a low for the season in conference.
Taking the floor against Rice in Houston, however, players seemed to put all of the negative thoughts out of their minds and blasted out to a 41-21 intermission lead.
Coming out of halftime, they built their advantage to 48-23 when Mia Hammonds scored on a fast break with 6:43 remaining in the third quarter.
The Owls, who had clinched the American regular-season title on Feb. 25, made a run in the final minutes of the game but ultimately ran out of time against the suddenly rejuvenated Roadrunners.
How did they get it done?
“Honestly, trusting in our coaches, trusting in each other, playing real hard, and just going all out on every possession — loose balls, rebounds, all that,” UTSA forward Idara Udo told an ESPN reporter in the post game. “Just playing together.”
With an offense that averaged only 60 points and 38 percent shooting from the field, the Roadrunners were on pace to score in the 70s until they started to slow the ball down at the end to drain the clock.
They finished the game by hitting 51 percent afield and 55 percent from three (five for nine.) Though the Roadrunners’ 25 turnovers hurt them, the Owls failed to take maximum advantage, scoring only 16 points off the miscues.
“I thought we played our tails off,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said. “I mean, it wasn’t always beautiful, in particular the second half. It was … rough and tumble. They were doing everything they could to turn us over, and they did, a lot.
“But I just thought that we were resilient and we played hard. We played really hard today.”
Hammonds led UTSA in scoring with 14 points.
Inconsistent for much of her second season with the Roadrunners, the 6-foot-3 wing from Cibolo Steele High School showed poise and some finesse in hitting seven of 10 shots from the field.
Udo also played efficiently in making six of nine.
The 6-foot-1 junior from Plano finished with 12 points and nine rebounds. Cheyenne Rowe, UTSA’s leader, averaging nearly 14 points, scored only six but battled effectively in the paint for 12 rebounds.
Freshman guard Adriana Robles scored nine, with backcourt mates Ereauna Hardaway and Damara Allen finishing with eight apiece.
The Owls, playing on Senior Day, seemed out of sorts from the beginning. Especially on the defensive end, the Owls didn’t seem to adjust with the Roadrunners moving the ball and getting scoring from multiple sources.
On Jan. 31, the Owls came into San Antonio and emerged with a 65-55 victory, holding UTSA to 29.7 percent shooting.
At the same time, Rice point guard Victoria Flores erupted for 33 points on eight of 10 shooting. She also hit four of six from three and 13 of 14 at the line.
In the rematch, the Roadrunners limited Flores’ touches and held her to eight points. She finished three of 10 from the field and two of six from three.
Dominique Ennis, another one of the Owls’ standouts, had a rough day as well with six points on one for 12 shooting. She misfired on all seven attempts from long range.
Forward Aniyah Alexis led the Owls with 15 points. She was a six of 15 shooter. Flores and forward Shelby Hayes finished with eight points apiece.
San Antonio’s Hailey Adams, helped off the floor in the first half with an apparent leg injury, returned to action after intermission. The Clark High School graduate finished with four points and six rebounds.
Adams, an all-conference candidate, is averaging more than eight points and 10 rebounds per game.
Records
UTSA 14-15, 9-9
Rice 27-4, 17-1
Coming up
American Conference tournament, next Tuesday through Saturday, in Birmingham.
Tournament notes
UTSA will open the American’s postseason tournament in the second round on Wednesday as the No. 6 seed against either No. 7 Temple or 10th-seeded Tulane. The game will tip off at 2 p.m.
If the Roadrunners win on Wednesday, they would advance to Thursday’s quarterfinals, matched against the third-seeded South Florida Bulls. That game would also have a 2 p.m. start.
Rice, as the No. 1 seed, will get a triple bye and will open in the semifinals on Friday.
The American’s postseason champion gets an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. The Roadrunners will need to win four games in four days to reach the NCAA’s 68-team event.
Rice game at a glance
The Roadrunners stunned the Owls in the first half, playing loose and free, shooting 59 percent and racing to a 41-21 lead.
UTSA’s point total matched what the team scored in the entire game Wednesday night in San Antonio, when they lost 53-41 to Tulsa.
Another oddity of the Roadrunners’ explosion in the first two quarters centered on Rowe, the team’s leading scorer. Limited to only eight minutes because of two early fouls, Rowe was scoreless.
As she sat and watched much of the half from the bench, Udo, Mia Hammonds and Allen all scored eight points apiece. Hardaway and Adriana Robles both scored seven.
