SAN ANTONIO – The UTSA men’s basketball team (12-18) departed to Fort Worth for the American Athletic Conference (AAC) men’s basketball tournament on Tuesday.
The Roadrunners went 3-7 across February and March but finished 2-1 in their final stretch of regular-season games.
Despite coming out on the losing end in a key stretch of games in the back half of the season, UTSA isn’t discouraged — the team is instead encouraged by how close those games were.
After opening February with a conference win over North Texas, the Roadrunners fell to Tulane and East Carolina by one point, respectively.
The Roadrunners would drop their next four contests, but again, all by narrow margins — including an overtime loss on the road at East Carolina.
Six-seed ECU is 11-seed UTSA’s second-round opponent in the AAC tournament.
“We do feel like we can make a deep run,” said UTSA men’s basketball first-year head coach Austin Claunch. “I mean, the first team we play, we’ve had two games where we’ve had second-half leads. You know, the other teams you can play down the line if you win, you get an opportunity to play UAB, who we played really tough at their place. We feel like we can make a real run at this thing.”
“I’m looking forward to competing,” said UTSA senior guard Primo Spears. “I’m looking forward to going to championship day. I think we have a talented group that can do it. I think the route that we have is also special with playing against teams that we’ve competed with and gone to battle with in overtime games and three-point losses. So I think this group has the talented and and the confidence to get it done.”
The Roadrunners and Pirates tip off at 8 p.m. on Thursday inside Dickies Arena.
Related coverage from KSAT:
