San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Defense carries ’Runners to sweep
After shots quit dropping, late stops fend off comeback by Golden Eagles
UTSA didn’t sugarcoat the team’s last-place start to the Conference USA season. The Roadrunners keep the standings posted outside the team locker room, facing the unfortunate reality before each practice and home game.
But despite the bleak 1-5 record entering this week, guard Jhivvan Jackson knew the Roadrunners were “not a team to be last.” If UTSA
could find a foothold on defense, he said, the wins would follow.
UTSA posted one of its best defensive performances of the season in a 70-64 win over Southern Miss on Friday at the Convocation Center, then came through with enough late stops in Saturday’s rematch to prevail 78-72 despite not making a field goal in the final five minutes.
Winning back-to-back games against Division I opponents for the first time this season, UTSA moved to 7-8 overall and 3-5 in Conference USA.
“It’s big. This gives us more confidence as a team in these next games,” freshman Jordan Ivy-Curry said. “It means a lot. This puts us in good position.”
UTSA built a lead as large as 15 points in Saturday’s second half before allowing Southern Miss to pull within five points with 2:29 remaining. But the Roadrunners responded with stops on three consecutive possessions and cushioned the margin at the freethrow line.
Southern Miss shot 46.9 percent for the game with 14 turn
overs.
“It feels great. We need every win we can get at this point,” Jackson said. “We fought hard today on defense. I think we didn't make a lot of shots today, down the stretch especially, but our defense kept us in.”
On Friday, UTSA held Southern Miss to four points in the game's first 10 minutes. The Roadrunners finished the night allowing 37.1 percent shooting and just 14 free throws — both season-best marks for UTSA.
Jackson called defense “the only thing that's stopping us from winning games,” as the Roadrunners entered the weekend with the most points allowed and worst defensive efficiency in Conference USA.
“Just something to build on,” coach Steve Henson said. “Two games we needed to get.”
Jackson, the NCAA's secondleading scorer last season with 26.8 points per game, showed flashes of the player who last season looked capable of taking over games. He entered Saturday averaging 19.3 points per game and hitting 30 percent from beyond the arc — a drop of 5 percentage points from last year — before netting 24 points on 6of-10 shooting from 3-point range.
The outside performance followed Jackson's 25-point outburst
Friday against Southern Miss, which included a seasonhigh 11 points at the free-throw line.
The other half of the nation's
highest-scoring backcourt the past two seasons, Keaton Wallace, added 12 points on 4-of-19 shooting. Wallace, too, is trying to return to form, hitting 29.5
percent from outside this season after knocking down 35.1 percent last year. But Henson noted that Wallace gave UTSA a lift with his defense Saturday, posting a team-high plus-10.
“We need Keaton and Jhivvan to step on that court and be allconference guards night in and night out,” Henson said.
The Roadrunners still have questions to answer, including whether they can win on the road after an 0-7 start to the year. UTSA plays the only home-andhome of the conference season this week, meeting UTEP on Thursday in San Antonio and on Saturday in El Paso.
UTSA remains near the bottom of the pack in the league standings, at risk of being one of two teams left out of the conference tournament field.
“We're still in the mix,” IvyCurry said. “We're just trying to make statements, go on a run or a winning streak. Let teams know we're still in it. We just started bad, but we're going to catch them in the conference tournament.”