SAN ANTONIO – Despite a historic 26-win regular season, the UTSA women’s basketball program was left out of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship.
The Roadrunners earned their first American Athletic Conference regular season title and the top seed at last week’s AAC Tournament. However, their quarterfinal-round loss to Rice likely gave the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee enough reason to leave UTSA out of the 68-team field.
The Roadrunners will compete in the second annual Women’s Basketball Invitational Tournament. Their first-round matchup against Gonzaga will be on the Bulldogs’ home floor in Spokane, Washington.
“I was a little surprised honestly, but the NCAA has been working with a lot of teams and putting them in all these tournaments, so I know it can’t be easy,” UTSA senior forward Jordyn Jenkins said. “But we just have to keep proving ourselves. That’s really what it comes down to.”
Head coach Karen Aston said the NCAA Tournament snub provides plenty of motivation going into the WBIT.
“It wouldn’t take me very much to be motivated with where we have been sent and, obviously, not a lot of respect for our body of work,” Aston said. “It wouldn’t take me very long at all to get motivated but different people are motivated by different things,” Aston said. “We’ll see.”
The Roadrunners will tip off the WBIT against the Gonzaga Bulldogs at 8 p.m. Thursday on ESPN+.
More recent UTSA women’s basketball coverage on KSAT: