SAN ANTONIO – The UTSA men’s basketball team (11-18, 5-12 AAC) came within mere inches on several opportunities of upsetting American Athletic Conference league-leading No. 16 Memphis (25-5, 15-2 AAC) on Tuesday night at the Convocation Center. The all-out battle in the Roadrunners’ home finale stalled at a two-point difference for over three minutes but the shots wouldn’t fall on either end until the visiting Tigers held off the rally at the free throw line of the 75-70 final.
The Roadrunners were the team to take the upper hand early in Tuesday’s AAC face-off, with Primo Spears driving the left side of the lane all the way from the perimeter and Marcus Millender following with a three, while the Tigers had three turnovers in the first four minutes. After David Hermes pushed UTSA into double digits with a 10-4 lead, the Tigers finally got the offense moving and knotted things up at 10 with a Baraka Okojie layup at 14:27 – extending their rally to 13-1 over a four-minute stretch. Trailing 17-11 into the media timeout, Millender sparked the Roadrunners with a runner off the glass through contact. Two subsequent three-pointers from forward Jonnivius Smith sliced the deficit and brought the game to 23-21 in favor of Memphis with 8:35 on the clock.
With Smith and Millender leading the way, the margin swayed back and forth within two possessions before a Colby Rogers three pushed Memphis back out to seven points with 34 seconds left. Coming down the final first half stretch, Spears knocked down a pair of free throws in the closing seconds to make it a 41-36 Memphis halftime advantage.
Surging in the Tigers’ typical fashion out of the halftime break, Dain Dainja led Memphis to building a 13-point lead just three minutes into the new half. However, unlike many Tiger foes that folded this season, UTSA weathered the storm and began to claw back. At 16:30, Smith hit his career-best third three-pointer as the shot clock expired and Tai’Reon Joseph dropped a triple the next trip up the floor to trim the deficit to eight. But again, Memphis surged back out to 13 on a three from former Roadrunner PJ Carter.
In a pivotal turning point, Millender set Smith for an alley-oop dunk and Baboucarr Njie registered a key up-and-under layup while playing in his first career start. Joseph added a fast-break dunk plus the free throw to cut it to 61-56. While the teams traded scores for the next three minutes, Spears stripped the ball from PJ Haggerty to set up his own second-chance three-point opportunity, draining the triple at 6:33 to slice the deficit to 66-64.
Momentarily it appeared a Nicholas Jourdain three could reignite the Tigers offense, but Spears found Smith for a monster dunk and Millender pushed the difference back to two with a 3:23 free throw that made it 69-67.
That is where things would remain for three minutes and 20 seconds, as the Tigers turned the ball over twice, missed consecutive shots and badly missed two free throws. Meanwhile, the Roadrunners kept firing for the win and five consecutive shots wouldn’t fall – with four coming from the perimeter. Though Millender dropped a three with less than a second to go, the Tigers were in the middle of six straight free throws that allowed them to escape their first trip to San Antonio with a 75-70 win.
Cutting one point shy of matching his career high, Smith finished with a season-best 18 points, seven rebounds and two blocks – making a career-high 3-of-4 from beyond the arc. Millender garnered a 16-point finish with four rebounds and three assists. Spears had seven assists in addition to 14 points. Overall, the Roadrunners shot 38.7 percent from the field and made nine threes.
The Roadrunners forced the Tigers into 22 turnovers – the most for a UTSA AAC opponent – recording 19 points off turnovers.
Up Next
The Roadrunners wrap up the regular season on Sunday with a trip to Charlotte. Facing the 49ers at Halton Arena on March 9 with a 3 p.m. CST tipoff. Upon returning to the Lone Star State, UTSA will begin its postseason journey in the American Athletic Conference Basketball Championships, running March 12-16, at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.
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