By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
UTSA men’s basketball coach Austin Claunch vowed on Monday that he will stand behind junior guard Vasean Allette “every step of the way” in his career even if he never plays for the Roadrunners.
The coach made his remarks Monday on a zoom conference after the program announced last week that the team’s top offseason pickup in the transfer portal would not play this season.
Allette had already sat out the first 12 games of the season before last week’s announcement on the American Conference’s new player availability notes.
With the Roadrunners on a seven-game losing streak going into a Wednesday night home game against the Charlotte 49ers, his name and biography remain on the program’s athletics website.
“Obviously, Vasean is somebody that we all — including him — had really high hopes (for),” Claunch said. “I want to be clear. It’s not a .. legal situation or anything like that. And I don’t want to dive too much into it.
“But, for him, (it’s) just trying to get himself back in the best place, to be ready to be him, and play basketball at a high level. Obviously, we’re here for him every step of the way and helping him figure out what his next steps are in his basketball journey — here, elsewhere — whatever the case may be.
“He won’t suit up for UTSA this year. And, obviously, I’m not going to dive too much into everything. Certainly he has our support in whatever he needs, to help him get back on his feet and get back to who he’s been, and play basketball.”
Claunch said he doesn’t know yet whether Allette will take classes at UTSA in the spring semester.
Record
Charlotte men 7-8, 1-1
UTSA men 4-10, 0-2
Coming up
Charlotte at UTSA men, Wednesday, 7 p.m.
Tulane at UTSA men, Saturday, noon
Notable
Because of commercial airline flight delays, the UTSA women’s and men’s teams spent the night in the DFW airport Saturday and didn’t arrive in San Antonio until around 7 a.m. on Sunday.
Both teams played Saturday afternoon at Temple in Philadelphia.
Claunch said forward Macaleab Rich is nursing a groin strain and did not practice Monday. His status for the Charlotte game is uncertain.
On Dec. 22, Rich scored 25 points on 11 of 15 shooting in a 71-68 loss to Seattle at home in the Convocation Center. In the team’s first conference game last Wednesday afternoon, he played four minutes before suffering the injury in a 110-70 loss at Florida Atlantic.
Rich did not play in a 76-57 loss at Temple in Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon.
“Hard to win on the road and we didn’t do enough in either game to justify getting that result,” Claunch said. “FAU unfortunately reminded me a lot of the Tulane game last year (a 92-63 road loss). A lot of young players against a talented team and we were not prepared for the onslaught that they brought offensively.
“Our offense didn’t help our defense whatsoever. We gave up way too much (in the) paint, just in general … giving up too many layups, too many free throws.”
Claunch said the Roadrunners played “much better” against Temple before the home-team Owls pulled away in the last five minutes.
“We’ve got to manufacture better shots,” the coach said. “I thought we had good ball movement. Now within our ball movement we’ve got to do a better job of being aggressive to go create and score. Defensively it was much improved. We’ve got to continue to value our paint and value our ball offensively.”
Coming up
Charlotte at UTSA women, Saturday 4 p.m.
Records
Charlotte 8-7, 2-0
UTSA 7-6, 2-0