The UTSA Roadrunners shout out their approval after learning they will play the 12-time national champion Connecticut Huskies Saturday in Storrs, Conn. – Photo by Joe Alexander

By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay

The UTSA women’s basketball team will play the top-overall seeded Connecticut Huskies on Saturday in Storrs, Conn., in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Coach Karen Aston captures the moment with a selfie after UTSA learns it has been matched in the NCAA first round with 34-0 Connecticut. – Photo by Joe Alexander

A crowd of supporters watching the televised bracket reveal Sunday night at UTSA Park West Fieldhouse erupted in cheers as the Roadrunners and the defending national champions came up as the first game announced on ESPN.

Connecticut enters the tournament at 34-0 and as the top seed in Regional 1 – Fort Worth, while UTSA will take an 18-15 record and a No. 16 seeding into one of the legendary venues in college basketball.

“This will be a fantastic experience for our players,” UTSA coach Karen Aston said. “When you play at Connecticut, you’re around really educated, fanatic fans, that I think every young person that plays college basketball should experience.”

A check of the records indicates that Harvard in 1998 is the only 16th-seeded team in NCAA women’s tournament history to beat a top seed. The Crimson did it in 1998 against Stanford.

Despite the long odds, UTSA standout Cheyenne Rowe said the Roadrunners just plan to have some fun with it.

“We’ll put everything out on the floor,” said Rowe, the most outstanding player at the American Conference tournament. “One team has to lose, so we’re just going to play as hard as we can.”

The Huskies are led by Coach Geno Auriemma on the bench and, on the floor, by all-Big East standouts Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong. Strong is the Big East Player of the Year.

Riding a modest five-game winning streak, the postseason champions in the American Conference learn they are on their way to play the top overall seed in the NCAA tournament. – Photo by Joe Alexander

“We all know how good they are,” Aston said. “They’re the best team in the country, probably. For us, it’s, ‘How can we keep growing? What can we get out of this experience?

“How competitive can we be? How do we measure ourselves against the best?”

UTSA won four games in four days at the American Conference tournament in Birmingham, Ala., to clinch a spot in the 68-team field.

The Roadrunners, seeded sixth in the American, beat the conference’s regular-season champion and top-seeded Rice Owls on Saturday night to claim an NCAA automatic bid.

UTSA has won a five games in a row overall, starting the streak on March 7 on the last day of the regular season at Rice.

Even though the streak is modest compared to some others in the national tournament, it’s been a meteoric and somewhat shocking rise into the NCAA bracket for those who follow UTSA.

This was a team that on March 4 scored only one point in the second quarter at home against Tulsa.

After that game, a dispiriting 53-41 loss in the team’s home finale, UTSA had lost six of their last nine. The Roadrunners sank to two games below .500 on the season.

In the wake of that moment, the Roadrunners held a meeting to reinforce some team values.

The UTSA Roadrunners are on their way to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 17 years. – Photo by Joe Alexander

Coming out of the meeting, UTSA traveled to Rice, defeated the Owls on the last day of the regular season, and then journeyed to Alabama, where the team ripped off victories over Temple, South Florida, East Carolina and Rice again.

Asked what comes to mind first when she reflects on the winning streak, Aston said, succinctly, ownership.

“I think that (players) just made a decision that they wanted this season to end differently than what it looked like against Tulsa,” the coach said. “There were some things that they had to do different. A mindset had to change.

“Sometimes a coach can talk and talk and talk, but until they’re ready to change their own mindset and collectively as a group, there’s not a lot we can do about it. I don’t think we coached any different.”

Aston acknowledged that she did talk to the group after Tulsa about “playing a little more free.”

“Just kind of, let it go, let it fly,” she said. “We’ll deal with the shots that don’t go in.

“I think that was important for me to get across to them, because when we played Tulsa, it looked like we were afraid to shoot the ball. Afraid to make mistakes.”

Aston said that she in effect allowed players to take ownership of the situation, and that they took over from there.

As a result, they’re on the road to Connecticut this weekend to play in their first NCAA tournament game in 17 years. It will be carried live on ABC on Saturday at 2 p.m.

With the America Conference postseason championship trophy front and center, the UTSA Roadrunners gathered Sunday at Park West Fieldhouse for the NCAA bracket reveal. – Photo by Joe Alexander