SAN ANTONIO – Surrounded by the team and fan base that she has built, UTSA head coach Karen Aston celebrated her 350th career win last Thursday night against Texas State, on an evening that the Roadrunners raised a pair of banners to celebrate the women’s basketball team’s 2025 American Conference Championship and WBIT postseason appearance.
The accomplishments over the past four-plus years have been quite remarkable. She inherited a program that had won a combined 15 games over the preceding three years. The average attendance was fewer than 500 people per game. Victories against conference foes or rivals like Texas State were uncommon.
Aston has engineered a steady ascent of the program, which even included a move to the more challenging American Conference prior to the 2023-24 season. Since that time, she has led the program to 45 victories, winning 67 percent of its games in that span. Last season, the Roadrunners set a school record for attendance, averaging more than 1,100 fans per contest.
The wins and the championships have been both plentiful and significant but, for Aston, the focus has always been on developing student-athletes. Following the milestone victory last week, UTSA’s fifth-year head coach largely credited her success to her colleagues and players.
“The most important thing you can do is put really good people around you so they can help the players be the best they can be,” Aston said. “I feel like that’s a lesson I’ve learned in coaching. You get good people around you who are proud of what they do. I think the staff is really good and they’ve been good. They help these guys be better and they pour into them. That’s been a non-negotiable for me.”
Inspired by Aston, many of her former players have chosen careers in coaching, a tribute to the impact she has had on their lives.
“You definitely hope that when they start to think about their profession that they find their passion,” Aston said. “Sometimes that takes a little bit for some players to figure out if basketball is their passion and if it is something they want to pay forward and teach someone else how to play. When they find that, I do take a lot of pride in that. We have a lot of former players who are in the profession in the high school ranks or in college basketball. It’s been a joy to watch all of them develop.”
One of those former players is Jhasmin Player, UIW’s first-year head coach. Aston recruited Player while serving as the associate head coach at Texas. She then had the opportunity to coach Player during her freshman season at Baylor in 2006-07.
“Jhasmin handles her coaching abilities just like she did as a player,” Aston said. “She’s a delight to coach and she’s a delight to be around – a very positive light in our profession and someone who I think has a very, very bright future as a head coach.”
For UTSA and UIW, San Antonio’s two NCAA Division I programs, to square off on the basketball court on a regular basis is something that both coaches feel has an importance beyond the game’s result.
“I think it’s natural for us to play each other and benefit from high attendance and benefit from community support,” Aston said. “Both Jhasmin and I are trying to gain community support for our program and gain support for women’s basketball in this city. I think it is extremely important to engage the community. This is beneficial for getting the community of San Antonio involved in women’s basketball.”
The Roadrunners and Cardinals are set to tip off on Wednesday at 7 p.m. in UIW’s McDermott Center.