The UTSA Roadrunners come to Austin to help the Longhorns kick off the 2014-15 season this Saturday at 2 pm. This will be the seventh meeting between the teams. The series started in the 1989-90 season with the last game in the 2007-08 season before it resumed last season. Horns lead the series 4-0. Last season was a low scoring affair with Texas winning 63-42. The Roadrunners were 14-17 overall last season and 4-8 on the road. Texas ended the season at 22-12 overall and 14-2 at home. UTSA is coming of two exhibition wins over McMurry (69-43) and Howard Payne (95-40). Texas won their one exhibition over Oklahoma City University 102-56. The Roadrunners return three starters and four other players that started between 4 and 16 games. Kamra King (# 10, 5-6 Sr. G) was the leading scorer for UTSA last season, averaging 13.6 ppg. Ashley Spaletta (# 24, 5-9 Sr. G) and Mannasha Bell (#33, 5-11 Jr. F) are the other two returning starters. The four returnees with some starting experience are: Tesha Smith (#30, 6-1 Soph. C), Niaga Mitchell-Cole (# 12, 5-10 Jr. G/F), Akunna Elonu (# 21, 5-9 Jr. F) and Mathilda Hergott (# 2, 5-10 Jr. G/F). Alana Heard (# 5, 5-6 Soph. G) played in 30 of 31 games, averaging 11 mpg. Three guards have joined the Roadrunners this season, two freshmen, Crystal Chidomere (# 4, 5-11 Fr. G) and Carlie Heineman (#31, 6-0 Fr. G) and transfer Pearl Johnson (# 1, 5-6 Jr. G) from St. Petersburg College. The Roadrunners return their top three 3pt shooters from last season in Spaletta (48-164, 29.3%), King (37-140, 26.4%) and Hergott (19-61, 31.11%). Smith (5.6 rpg) and Bell (5.3 rpg) ended up 2nd and 3rd, in rebounding , respectively. The Roadrunners are not a team with a lot of height. Their most experienced post, Smith is the only center listed on the roster. She is listed at 6-1, played in 30 games last season and started seven games. The tallest Roadrunner is Taylor Williams (#25, 6-2 Soph. F) who only got into nine games as a freshman, averaging 2. 1 mpg. From the SA Express News on 10/07/14: “In his first year as head coach, [Luby] Lichonczak led the Roadrunners to a 14-17 record. UTSA went 4-12 in Conference USA and lost in the second round of the postseason tournament. His top returning players are guards Kamra King and Ashley Spaletta, forward Mannasha Bell and center Tesha Smith. Lichonczak said his best practice player to this point has been Mathilde Hergott, a 3-point shooting specialist who played well late last season.” For UTSA, King missed the first exhibition and played in the second. Smith has come off the bench in both exhibitions. Spaletta, Bell and Hergott have been joined in the starting lineup for the two exhibitions by Mitchell-Cole and Elonu. Horns return 10 players from last season that saw action in games. These include six players that had at least 13 starts, although one, Imani, is out until at least the start of conference games recovering from leg surgery. They have added four freshmen, including the preseason Big 12 Freshman of the Year in Ariel Atkins. One of that talented quartet, Diani, is out for the first part of the season with an injury. That leaves 12 healthy players. All played in the exhibition against Oklahoma City University with five hitting double digits in scoring. UT’s 10 returning players scored 82 percent of the team’s points this season, grabbed 86.5 percent of the rebounds, dished out 86.2 percent of the assists and had 138 of 139 blocks (99.3%). Horns were outstanding in rebounding margin, ranking 4th nationally with a margin of 11.1. That was tops in the Big 12. With the top four rebounders returning in Nneka (8.6 rpg), Imani (7.3 rpg), Empress (3.9 rpg) and Kelsey (3.6 rpg), that should continue to be a strong point. Horns made a big jump in shooting percentage, going from 40.0% two seasons ago to 43.5% which ranked 43rd nationally and 3rd in the league.br>While the Horns lost their most prolific 3pt scorer in Chassidy (44-131) and most accurate 3pt shooter in Gigi (52.9%), they return four players that hit between 34 and 46.5% and made 103 of 259. In addition, three of the freshmen come in as excellent shooters from BTA. Add in Empress who has shown that she has put in a lot of work in on her 3pter, and the Horns have 8 shooters capable of hitting consistently from BTA. One thing the Horns excel in is passing. Four players averaged just over 2 assists a game last season. All three freshmen are also capable passers. What they will need to guard against is overpassing and not taking the open shot. Look for the Horns to run at every chance and look for rotations, whether in quantity or singly, frequently to help with maximum effort throughout the game. The projected starting lineups based on the last exhibition game. For both teams, the starting lineups appear to be fluid. [pre]Texas UTSA Nneka, 6-1 Sr. F Elonu, 5-9 Jr. F Kelsey, 6-5 Soph. C Bell, 5-11 Jr. F Ariel, 5-11 Fr. G Hergott, 5-10 Jr. G/F Empress, 5-7 G Mitchell-Cole, 5-10 Jr. G/F Krystle, 5-4 Sr. G Spaletta, 5-9 Sr. G [/pre] The only two spots for the Horns I feel are pretty set are the posts. The perimeter will depend on how the players perform in practice this week. UTSA could have King easing into the starting lineup in place of one of the other guards. She is their leading returning scorer and she started 30 of 31 games. Horns have a significant height advantage inside with Kelsey and Lilley facing only two players over 6 feet, 6-2 F Taylor Williams and 6-1 Tesha Williams, both sophomores. Nneka and Nekia are likely to be matched up against either Williams or several 5-11, 5-10 players. UTSA’s 6-0 freshman guard Carlie Heineman may be spotted in the post to help bring out her defender as she is a good perimeter shooter. For the Horns, it will start with looking inside to their posts with kickouts and ball reversal to get open looks for the guards and wings. This should be a win for the Horns before they head out to the West Coast to take on Stanford and UCLA. It should give the team one more opportunity to continue to gell in different rotations against competition. KVET 1300 will carry the game while the LHN will show it. Parking will be an adventure for many as they get used to different assigned lots after the closure of the west Lot 108. I do believe that there will be an after game meeting with team at the Lone Star room. No Bevo Bargains as of Friday. The site still shows the comment “coming soon.” The weather forecast is for the mid 50s with possible light showers. Safe trip to and from the game, everyone. texassports.com preview goutsa.com game preview
Lang steps into middle of Longhorns’ season Nice AAS story about how hard Kelsey and Lilley have worked leading up to this season.
Horns got off to a rough start in the first half, going just over six minutes without scoring after taking a 4-0 lead on two baskets by Kelsey. The good thing is that UTSA only scored 3 pts on that same time period. Eventually, the Horns took 31-15 lead at the half. And, after allowing UTSA to close the gap early in the second half, ended up with a 68-48 win. In addition to Imani and Diani being out as expected, Brady did not play due to a hand injury suffered on Friday. See the link below for more details. Biggest thing that jumped out were TOs. 23 to be exact. The issue was that about half were due to Horn errors, i.e., walks, bad passes. Those are correctable. Horns are deep at the wing and guard positions. Deep enough to run one post and four guards for an extended period. And the guards were rotated in and out. Of course, what that means is that the team is thin at the post. Both Kelsey (fouled out) and Nneka (four fouls) were in foul trouble most of the game. Both realize that they will need to play smarter as they need to stay on the floor. Nneka had some highlight blocks and Kelsey had a quiet and strong game overall with 12 pts on 6-9 shots, 6 rebs, 3 steals and 3 blocks. Nneka did have a good game when on the floor: 4-6 from the floor, 8 pts, 8 rebs, 2 steals and 2 blocks. All 11 available players played and ten scored at least 2 pts. Everyone got at least one reb with Nekia leading the team with 10. Brianna added 6 rebs. Seven got an assist. Eight got steals. Tasia had two blocks helping to deny two layups. The defense at times was suffocating. Kelsey and Nneka provided a strong defensive last line of defense when in the game. It is going to be key against Stanford and UCLA that they spend more time on the court together. While none of the frosh reached double digit scoring, all were impressive in their debut. It was a nice win over a very scrappy team. There are things for the staff to focus: finding the hot shooter for one, taking care of the ball, improving on 3pt shooting (2-12 from BTA). Horns are 1-0 going into their California road trip. I am excited about this team. As rough as the play was times, the glimpses of what they can do when clicking on all cylinders is outstanding. Both the Stanford and UCLA are supposed to be on the PAC12 network. The game replay will be at 11 PM tonight on the LHN for those that want to stay up a bit late to watch the first game of the season. ESPN recap
Hmm, still a win, but not a great win. Celina didn't have a great game today. Brianna did great off the bench. #LTT
Lang is legit and is there anyone that hussels as much as jones? If she could get into some better shape she could be even more of a contributor than she already is. Love watching her go 100% all the time.
free throw shooting is still a problem. They HAVE to get that to 80% at a minimum. It should NOT be that difficult to expect them to make a much greater percentage than has been converted in the past several years...
mb227, for whatever reason, the team has hovered around 69% the last four or five seasons. Before that, it was around 74% for three to four seasons. So they can make do better from the FT line. Empress was one of the better FT shooters last season but missed 3 of 7 in this game. The good news is that three players were perfect from the line. I do expect that they will improve in games or they will be doing a lot of running in practice. A return to 74-75% would be very good.
There is simply no excuse for missing that many free throws. Do kids not learn fundamentals at an early age any more? Even when I was a kid, I spent more time in the driveway shooting from the line when I was by myself...hundreds at a time, not going in until I hit at least ten in a row.
