SAN ANTONIO – It might sound counterintuitive until you get to know her, but one of the reasons 18-year-old Amber Gregg decided to play basketball at UTSA was because it was a program that had never been to the NCAA Tournament.
Gregg, now a first-year assistant coach on Karen Aston’s Roadrunners’ staff, is an Austin native who lettered for UTSA from 2007-11. As a player, she led her team to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances in 2008 and 2009 and now, following the team’s 2026 American Conference Championship, will have been a part of every NCAA Tournament appearance in program history.
UTSA will face top-seeded UConn on Saturday at 2 p.m. CT on ABC from Gampel Pavilion.
“It’s kind of an indescribable feeling,” Gregg said on Wednesday at the team’s last practice before departing for Storrs, Conn., for the NCAA First Round. “There’s a pride that comes with it. I’m literally in awe of all the things this program has become since I left it. Coach Aston has done a phenomenal job with building and rebuilding and making UTSA a nationally recognized program again.”
Gregg, who graduated with a bachelor of arts degree in multidisciplinary studies at UTSA, remembers telling her college coach, the late Rae Rippetoe-Blair, that the NCAA Tournament was a goal within reach for the Roadrunners.
“That was the reason I came here – I came here to try to build something,” Gregg said. “I came here excited when I was 18 years old with Coach Blair, promising her ‘We’re going to go to the NCAA Tournament,’ so to continue that legacy and to continue to be a part of something that Coach Aston has built has been really, really special.”
Gregg’s magnetic connection UTSA was almost instantaneous. In high school, she was pursued by Kansas State of the Big 12 Conference, but wasn’t a fan of the cold weather and liked the idea of being on the ground floor of building a program’s legacy.
“When I came on my visit here, I fell in love with the opportunity,” Gregg said. “I fell in love with the chip on your shoulder, with the vision that Coach Blair had and with the fact that they had never been to the NCAA Tournament. I thought that it was a place where I could build a resume and a name for myself, but also for the program. I have lifelong friends from here. Coach Blair was phenomenal for me. I’m forever indebted to her for all the opportunity that she gave me to build. All the players we had here – we were all on the same page when it came to doing something that had never been done.”
In Gregg’s freshman year of 2007-08, the Roadrunners went 23-10, won the Southland Conference Tournament Championship for the first time and made the program’s inaugural appearance in March Madness. A year later, they won the league’s regular-season and tournament titles, advancing to the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season.
UTSA won 79 games (an average of nearly 20 per season) during Gregg’s playing days and she became the 11th player in school history to surpass 3,000 career points. Her name is still featured prominently within the school’s record book.
Being part of a conference championship and an NCAA Selection Show from a different perspective has been particularly rewarding for Gregg.
“It’s like watching myself all over again,” she said. “You grow up and you see it, but until you’re really in it, you don’t understand how special and unique the opportunity is. For UTSA, it’s been a 17-year gap [in NCAA Tournament appearances]. It hasn’t been a tradition for them to play in it every year. Getting to see them be excited, to see the excitement around the University and the program, to see our name get called, that’s what I do it for.”
Gregg knew from an early age that she wanted to be a coach, inspired by Blair and following in the footsteps of her father who served as her coach growing up.
“I’ve been a grassroots kid all my life; my dad has constantly poured into other kids,” Gregg said. “Now, I’m doing the same thing. I knew once I got to college that I would never be able to get rid of the bug. I fell in love with the game for so many reasons. The more that it became like life, the more I fell in love with it. It’s taught me so much. It’s one of those things that I always knew I was going to do, I just didn’t know in what capacity.”
Gregg has great breadth and depth in her coaching experience, which is one of many factors that has made her an effective mentor and teacher for the UTSA players. She spent five years as the Director of Player Development for the Austin Elite basketball program. Gregg was an assistant coach for the Austin Elite Girls 17U team from 2011-13 and head coach of the Austin Elite Boys 17U team from 2013-15, with an impressive track record of moving players on to the NCAA Division I level.
Gregg then spent six seasons (2015-21) as an assistant coach at Louisiana, where she mentored nine All-Sun Belt Conference selections and the 2018-19 Sun Belt Freshman of the Year, Brandi Williams. She left the Ragin Cajuns to found 94FT Player Development in Lafayette, La., where she trained athletes from the youth to professional level, before accepting her current position at UTSA.
Growing up in Austin, Gregg had always looked up to UTSA head coach Karen Aston who, prior to serving as head coach at Texas from 2012-20, was Jody Conradt’s top assistant from 1998-2006. The two connected upon Aston being hired to lead the Roadrunners. The rest, as they say, is history.
“I’ve been a fan of Karen since I was a kid,” Gregg said. “When she got the job, we connected with me as an alumna. She does a great job at building relationships and touching base. She always stayed in touch throughout the course of her tenure here. When Jamie [Carey] left to be the head coach at Omaha, Karen reached out to me and said, ‘I have an opportunity for you and I would love for you to come back; I think it’s time for you to come back.’ She’s done an incredible job. It was a no-brainer for me.”
It’s been a perfect match for Gregg in her role on Aston’s staff.
“I didn’t realize what I was walking into until I got back on campus and I was like, ‘Wow, this is incredible,’” she said. “This is a special place. Our leader is a special, special person. To come back and be in it again with a different perspective after you’ve already done it has been the ultimate job for me because I see it through a different lens now. I want the kids to be able to experience the things that we experienced and I have the pride to do it again.”
Gregg’s career has come full circle with her role at UTSA. Entering Saturday’s NCAA First Round matchup, she’s just focused on continuing to make a difference at the same place that shaped her.
“I’m getting to give back to the game that gave to me and especially to the place I have so much pride in.”