UTSA ‘runs road’ to historic season and top of American standings

It’s Friday, Feb. 7. The UTSA women’s basketball team is in Wichita, Kanasas, for a conference game against Wichita State the next day. On their route to practice, the bus passes Braum’s Ice Cream & Dairy Store.

Junior guard Maya Linton called out and asked the coaching staff if they win the next day could the team make a stop there and get ice cream. The coaches agreed that the group could go there on the way to the airport.

The Roadrunners defeated the Shocker 60-49 for their 20th win of the season – marking the program’s first 20-win season in more than a decade and a half. The last time reaching that mark was 2009, which was also the program’s last trip to the NCAA Tournament.

“The best part of it is who you’re doing it with,” UTSA fourth-year head coach Karen Aston said. “This is just a group of people, including staff, who I’ve really enjoyed just being with every day. I think they would say the same thing about each other. That’s what makes the ride fun. It’s one of the few teams that I’ve ever coached that can be really lighthearted and laugh and goof around, and then when it’s time to go, they know how to flip the switch and get serious about what they’re doing. That’s been really enjoyable for me as a coach.”

UTSA leads the American Athletics Conference at 13-1 and boasts a 22-3 overall record this season. The Roadrunners are tied for 27th in the nation in scoring defense, yielding 56.1 points per game. They are outrebounding the opposition by 9.6 per game, which is 10th best across Division I.

“[Defense] goes back to the commitment that they made,” Aston said. “It goes all the way back to when we started in June. We started to incorporate philosophies. We do it every day, and you develop some philosophies that you hope will carry you through the long haul. They embraced it.”

The Roadrunners posted a 9-2 mark in non-conference play, which was the program’s best. That includes a win over UNC Greensboro, who is leading the Southern Conference. The two losses came to power-conference foes Texas A&M and Stanford.

UTSA has seen incremental improvements over the course of Aston’s four seasons. She inherited a two-win team and went 7-23 in year one. The following season, the Roadrunners nearly doubled that win total and to finish 13-19. Aston guided the team to an 18-15 record in 2024, which marked the program’s first winning season since 2015.

The ’Runners advanced to the second round of the WNIT, which was the third time the team reached the postseason (back-to-back NCAA Tournament trips in 2008 and 2009).

“Some of those experiences carried over to the summer workouts,” Aston said. “It was an approach that we got a little taste of some success and let’s see what we can do the upcoming year. We had the right approach in summer workouts. We had a lot of retention.”

UTSA returns nine players from last year’s team, which equates to 80% of its scoring.

Jordyn Jenkins is leading the AAC at 18.5 points per game, which is tied for 40th nationally. She ranks 10th in the conference in rebounding at 6.9 a contest. She’s fourth in field goal percentage (47.2%) and blocks (1.2). The redshirt senior leads the league in free throw shooting at 81.8%.

The forward played just 12 games at the end of last season after recovering from an offseason injury. The 2023 AAC Player of the Year has averaged at least 17 points and 6.8 rebounds in each of her three seasons in San Antonio after transferring in from USC.

“[Jordyn’s] growth has been more on the mental side,” Aston said. “She’s been through a lot of adversity. She went through COVID. … From a mental perspective, she’s really, really grown up and matured. She’s a wonderful young lady, period.

“She has really grown into a leader. When we first started coaching her, she wasn’t mentally and emotionally capable of that even though she was the best player. She’s really grounded herself, and she feels like she has a family here. She’s an incredibly gifted player.”

Sidney Love is the only other Roadrunner averaging double figures at 10.4 a night.

Nina De Leon Negron is just off that benchmark at 9.9 a game. They both rank in the top seven in the conference in assists with De Leon Negron second at 5.2 a game and Love seventh at 3.6 a contest.

De Leon Negron is playing her final college season with the Roadrunners after playing two seasons at each Austin Peay and Incarnate Word. The Puerto Rican grad student led the Southland in assists last season and was an all-conference first-team selection.

“The addition of Nina has really elevated our leadership because she is a true point [guard],” Aston said. “She has a gift of leadership. She’s a very good basketball player, but she’s also a really good leader. That was sort of a missing piece to what we needed. She was a huge addition for us.”

UTSA has four games remaining in the regular season before the conference tournament. The Roadrunners visit Rice on Saturday.