UTSA coach Austin Claunch, encouraged by his team’s competitive spirit in a 21-point loss at USC on Tuesday night, nevertheless said he wants his team to learn from their mistakes. – File photo by Joe Alexander
By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
Competing with a fiery purpose against a Power 4 team and playing their first exhibition game on the road, the UTSA Roadrunners finally started to unravel in the last 12 minutes Tuesday night.
They trailed by only three points at halftime and by four when floor leader Primo Spears popped in a 13-foot jumper with 12:13 remaining. From there, the USC Trojans kicked it into gear, obviously intent on winning big for first-year coach Eric Musselman on their home court at the Galen Center in Los Angeles.
The Trojans took advantage of a few poor possessions by the Roadrunners and ignited a 31-14 run to the end of the game, en route to an 84-63 victory.
On Wednesday night, first-year UTSA coach Austin Claunch sat in his office, trying to unpack all the emotions emanating from his debut game with the Roadrunners.
His team, playing without guard Tai’Reon Joseph, one of its top athletes, stayed within striking distance for almost three fourths of the game.
“Overall, I thought the experience was great,” Claunch said. “I thought there were more things to take away in a positive light than not.”
Before the team left the arena, the coach told his players a story. He told them how the Alabama Crimson Tide failed to win in the preseason last year.
“And we made the Final Four,” said Claunch, who worked as an assistant last year in Tuscaloosa. “So these games, win or lose, you got to learn to get better.”
More than anything, he stressed that if a team wants to be good in March, it needs to learn how to handle pressure situations.
“We got to learn to be tougher in those moments and not break down and not give them easy baskets,” he said. “They didn’t give us anything easy. Everything that we got in that game was earned. They made us work.
“And on the flip side, there were just moments where we didn’t make them work for baskets. At the highest level of basketball, you can’t do that.”
Claunch said he held Joseph out as UTSA awaits word from the NCAA on a waiver.
“There’s a waiver process that we’re waiting on,” the coach said. “I’m not going to dig into the details of it. A lot (happened) over the last couple of months, and we realized we needed to file this waiver for him. He’s going to get it, is what it looks like. He hasn’t gotten it yet. We were expecting to hear at the end of last week (and) we didn’t. We were hoping to hear Monday. By the time the game started (Tuesday), we didn’t.”
Joseph is a transfer from Southern University in Baton Rouge, La. A jet-quick, 6-foot-3 guard, he has played extremely well in preseason practices at UTSA. Last year, Joseph led the Southwestern Athletic Conference in scoring, averaging 20.5 points per game.
Claunch said he hopes to be able to play Joseph on Saturday in Houston against the Will Wade-coached McNeese State University Cowboys. The contest is a closed scrimmage, and no fans are allowed to watch. It is the final scrimmage of preseason for the Roadrunners, who open at home on Nov. 4 against Trinity University.
The coach said he planned to start Joseph against the Trojans in Los Angeles. “He’s been playing great in practice, obviously,” Claunch said. “You’ve seen it, and how he plays.”
Even without Joseph, the Roadrunners held their own for the first half, trailing only 35-32 at the intermission break. After reviewing the game tape twice, Claunch described the team’s defense on USC as “pretty elite” for the first 20 minutes of the game.
“To go into their place in the first half and to keep it close, we felt good,” Claunch said.
Offensively, it was another story. The Roadrunners misfired on eight of their first 11 shots from the field against the switching style of the Trojans defensively.
“We felt like the lid was going to come off that rim (for us) at some point,” the coach said. “But you know, they actually did a great job. They made it hard on us. They were switching one through five., which was tough, especially with their length and their athleticism.”
Spears, unofficially, was 0 for 6 from the field in the first half. Heating up after halftime, he finished 5 of 16 for 14 points. He also had two assists and two steals. Marcus “Smurf” Millender finished with 12 points and four assists. As a team, the Roadrunners shot 38 percent from the field and 24 percent from three (7 of 29).
On Monday, Spears was in the Dallas area speaking with reporters at an American Athletic Conference media event, so he didn’t get to practice the day before the game. The only chance he had to shoot in the arena was at shootaround on Tuesday morning, which could have affected his rhythm, Claunch said.
Near the end of the first half, when he was on the bench in foul trouble, coaches noticed that he seemed engaged and into the game.
“When I took him out, I told him, “We’ll see how the half goes’ ” Claunch said. ” ‘Maybe I’ll put you back in. Maybe I won’t.’ And he was great. I think he showed leadership over there on the bench, keeping guys positive. Good energy. That, to me, is good for just the long-term success for this program, with guys understanding that some moments are their (moments) and some are their teammates.
“I think Primo is doing a fantastic job at being a leader and a pillar of this program.”