Winning three out of their last four regular-season games, the Roadrunners find themselves riding high as they head into the American Athletic Conference tournament this upcoming week. Though UTSA is slated to be the No. 13 seed, head basketball coach Steve Henson has remained incredibly confident in his team’s ability to make a deep tournament run.
“You drive yourself crazy looking at that stuff,” Henson said of the tournament seeding. “Regardless of who we play, our guys are feeling really good right now, mentally and physically.”
Getting hot at the right time, the ‘Runners have put together exceptional victories against conference foes such as Tulsa, SMU and North Texas. Making late-season adjustments on the defensive end, the team has elevated their defensive intensity to new heights. While defensive execution has remained a concern all season long for the team, UTSA has seemingly finally found a way to put it all together.
“All of a sudden, something just clicked,” Henson said of the late defensive surge. “We voiced our concerns, we just kept searching and talking about how to get better defensively.”
Despite acknowledging the incredible offensive output the team has created, the coach continued to credit the newfound defensive mentality for UTSA’s incredible win streak.
“As good as this team’s been offensively, we’re kind of just riding that defensive momentum,” Henson added. “Our statistics these last four ballgames have been so much different on both ends of the floor.”
While the team’s defense can certainly be credited as the reason for the late-season improvements, it has been the ‘Runners’ perseverance and team-oriented mentality that have allowed them to blossom headed into March. Suffering multiple losing streaks throughout the season, the team failed to waver in the face of adversity. Continuing to work hard as a unit, UTSA now finds itself playing its best basketball at the tail end of the season.
“I’m really proud of the way our guys hung in there,” Henson added. “They stayed together, there wasn’t any major turmoil in the locker room.”
Despite their exceptional play late, the team remains the lowest-ranked seed in the conference. Though it is certainly lower than the team would like, their recent play has proved to be far better than that of a 13th seed. As the team and coaching staff continue to voice their excitement about this year’s tournament, Henson believes that the team still has a lot of room for improvement.
“I still think this team has an opportunity to execute a little sharper,” Henson said. “It’s late in the season, but we can definitely add on the defensive end.”
With only a couple of days left to improve their gameplan, the ‘Runners look to be incredibly dangerous in the AAC tournament. The team will go up against Rice at 1 p.m. Wednesday at Dickies Arena in Ft. Worth.
