SAN ANTONIO – Just call them the Resilient Roadrunners.
This year’s UTSA women’s basketball team doesn’t resemble what may have been expected at the start of the season. A flurry of injuries, illnesses and personnel adjustments have created a great deal of adversity for this year’s Roadrunners.
But it’s an environment in which the team has thrived. UTSA, which won the 2025 American Conference regular-season championship, is 4-1 in league play this season entering Tuesday’s home game with East Carolina.
“I can’t say enough about how proud I am of this group,” said Karen Aston, the Roadrunners’ fifth-year head coach. “They’re very resilient. They’re young. They have accepted leadership from other people. Some of their roles continue to change every day. They just keep finding ways to mold themselves into what we need them to be.”
UTSA, which leads The American in both scoring defense (57.9 ppg allowed) and field-goal percentage defense (.368 allowed), will square off with the top-scoring offense in the conference as the Pirates are averaging 73.7 points per contest.
“They have a plethora of people who can score the basketball,” Aston said of East Carolina. “This team looks like it has really good chemistry and they look like they’re having fun playing the game. We’re going to have to be really, really good on our home court. We have to have a sense of urgency about how we play. It’s not going to be easy by any means.”
This year’s Roadrunners have become comfortable with doing hard things. Led by veterans Cheyenne Rowe and Ereauna Hardaway, UTSA’s active roster is mostly composed of young players and team members figuring out new roles. What might be seen by some as a challenge, is more accurately viewed as an opportunity.
“I’m one of those coaches that tries to get them to understand that any time something happens, it’s an opportunity,” Aston said. “It’s an opportunity to put yourself in a position that maybe you didn’t think you’d be in. It’s a growing and learning experience. They’re here to have an opportunity to make a difference and they’re embracing that.”
A non-conference schedule that included Power 4 opponents Auburn, Baylor, Houston and Texas Tech has helped prepare UTSA’s team for the rigors of conference play. Excluding a 37-point win against Florida Atlantic in the squad’s last outing and the Roadrunners won three of their conference games by an average of just 3.7 points per game. Those moments, said Hardaway, have brought together an already close team.
“I think it gives us a lot of confidence knowing that we have to be together in those moments,” said Hardaway, a senior transfer from North Texas. “It makes us learn a lot, especially since we’re a young team.”
A 17-point loss at preseason conference favorite South Florida last Tuesday could have negatively affected the Roadrunners. But not this year’s team. They responded with their most resounding victory of the league slate at Florida Atlantic on Friday.
“This team has been able to bounce back no matter what happens,” Aston said. “After the South Florida loss, we talked about, ‘let’s not let one loss turn into two.’ Their response was fantastic. We did some things defensively that we had not been able to do in games in the past. I thought we learned from some of our mistakes from the South Florida game. As a coach, that’s what you’re looking for. You’re looking for players to learn life lessons along with basketball lessons. It gets tough sometimes. How are you going to respond to that?”
Aston, who had to build the UTSA program from a team that won just two games the season before her hire to an American Conference Championship team in year four, is seeing the culture she and her players have developed permeate through this year’s team.
“You start to understand that it’s not about you individually and I think they all kind of have that attitude,” Aston said. “It’s nice to see that’s our culture. No matter who plays, that’s UTSA’s culture. I think they understand that and have bought into it.”
Thirteen games remain in the 2025-26 regular season and, though numerous challenges are ahead, the Roadrunners appear poised to tackle anything that comes their way.
“I’ve had a blast with this team,” Aston said. “It’s been really fun to watch this team develop because they’re not anything like what everybody thought they were going to be. I think there’s a huge ceiling that we haven’t even hit because of their youth. I have no idea if we’re going to win every game or lose every game, but I’m proud of what their product is and I’m proud of who they are.”