SAN ANTONIO – Although the UTSA men’s basketball team (4-13, 0-5 AMER) reeled off a stout offensive performance and hit the glass hard, Rice (8-10, 2-3 AMER) held off numerous second-half Roadrunner rallies, coming away with an 89-73 win on Wednesday night at the Convocation Center.
Polar opposites in the opening minutes of Wednesday’s game, the Roadrunners struggled to get the offense moving, making just two of the first eight shots, while the Owls knocked down four of their first five three-pointers to build up an 18-6 advantage after only six minutes. Despite the UTSA offense starting to roll, the Owls leaned heavily on the three-ball, with over half of their shots beyond the arc, scoring at a 66.7 percent rate beyond the arc in the half.
After seeing Rice advance its lead to as many as 19, the Roadrunners chipped away in the closing minutes of the first half, with Austin Nunez and Baboucarr Njie leading a 50-percent shooting effort in the half, slicing the deficit to 11 as UTSA made its final four shots of the half to head to the locker room trailing 51-40.
Though Nunez cut it to nine just nine seconds into the second half, the Owls answered with back-to-back threes, leading way to rebuilding a 17-point lead via Andrew Akuchie’s putback with 14:12 remaining. Njie spearheaded the first of many second-half rallies for UTSA, getting physical inside for consecutive scores. Then Nunez stripped Eternity Eguagie and took it the distance for a fast break dunk, ahead of Njie’s first career triple that made it 66-58 with 12:09 on the clock – capping a 9-0 UTSA run.
Rice produced an answer to every UTSA run, with Trae Broadnax stopping the UTSA push this time. The margin teetered around single digits for the next several minutes and Njie’s free throws cut it back to nine with 3:45 remaining, and another Njie set dropped it back to 10 less than a minute later.
With the Roadrunners forced to foul, Rice was able to keep safe distance and extend the final margin to 89-73.
On the night, the Roadrunners shot 43.5 percent from the floor. After being slowed in the second half, Rice finished shooting 55.6 percent and 51.6 percent from three. On the glass, UTSA topped the margin, 32-31.
Njie matched his career scoring high with a game-most 23 points, shooting 9-for-14 (64.3 percent), while also grabbing a game-high nine rebounds (six offensive rebounds) with three assists and three blocks. Freshman Dorian Hayes was 4-for-9 from three for 18 points and Nunez finished with 16 points and five rebounds.
Up Next
UTSA closes the week with a Sunday nationally televised road matchup at defending American Champion Memphis at FedEx Forum, heading directly to Denton, Texas, for a Wednesday rematch with North Texas at the Super Pit.
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