By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
The UTSA Roadrunners will take some momentum into the American Athletic Conference tournament after registering an 83-80 road victory over the Charlotte 49ers on Sunday.
UTSA finished the regular season with two wins in its last three games.
According to the AAC website, the Roadrunners will be the 11th seed in the tournament and will face No. 6 East Carolina on Thursday at 8 p.m.
Records
UTSA 12-18, 6-12
Charlotte 10-21, 3-15
Coming up
UTSA vs East Carolina, AAC tournament, Thursday at 8 p.m. at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth
Tournament glance
By winning twice in the last few weeks of the season, the Roadrunners avoided having to play Wednesday on the opening day of the tournament. At the same time, they will not have it easy, by any means, needing to win four games in four days for the title, starting with the East Carolina Pirates on Thursday.
East Carolina swept two games from UTSA this season, both in close battles that went down to the final seconds.
On Feb. 8 in San Antonio, the Roadrunners made a couple of turnovers and allowed a four-point lead to slip away in the final 48 seconds. The Pirates won 80-79 when C.J. Walker hit a turnaround jumper from 15 feet with four seconds left. On Feb. 23 at Greenville, N.C., RJ Felton scored 30 points and the Pirates claimed a 96-89 victory in overtime.
Notable
Playing with a seven-man rotation, UTSA was good on the offensive end, hitting 52 percent from the field and 50 percent from three, and Marcus Millender led the Roadrunners with 20 points and eight rebounds.
Primo Spears scored 19 to go along with six assists. Damari Monsanto also scored 19, knocking down a team-high four three-point shots in the process. Tai’Reon Joseph scored 11. Millender and Spears played 40 minutes and Monsanto 38.
The Roadrunners finished the last few minutes of the game without anyone taller than 6-foot-6 on the floor after both Jonnivius Smith and David Hermes fouled out. Raekwon Horton, announced last week as away on personal leave, did not play.
Six-foot-five freshman Baboucarr Njie played center for the last 1:58 of the game and made a big play to help secure the victory.
With UTSA leading by three, the Roadrunners put the ball in the hands of Spears, who dumped a pass off to Joseph cutting to the basket. Joseph missed the layup, but Njie crashed the offensive glass. He passed out to Spears, who was fouled and made two free throws with 11 seconds left for a five-point lead.
Kylan Blackmon scored 16 of his game-high 22 points in the second half for the 49ers. Florida Atlantic transfer Nik Graves had 16 of his 21 in the first half.