SAN ANTONIO–The No. 16 seed UTSA women’s basketball team is set to face No. 1 seed UConn on March 21 at 2 p.m. CT in Storrs, Connecticut, at Gampel Pavilion as part of the NCAA Tournament First Round.
The game will be broadcast live on ABC with Ryan Ruocco (play-by-play), Rebecca Lobo (analyst), and Holly Rowe (reporter) on the call. Neal Raphael will deliver all the action on the radio in the greater San Antonio area on The Bull 93.3 FM and worldwide on the iHeartRadio app. Live stats for the contest can be found at goUTSA.com/wbbstats, and tickets are available for purchase at goUTSA.com/wbbtickets.
The Roadrunners (18-15, 9-9 American) will appear in the NCAA Tournament for the third time in the program’s history, and the first since 2009. UTSA received an automatic bid to the tournament after winning four games in four days as the sixth seed at the American Championship, with a 54-40 win over No. 1 seed Rice.
Previously, UTSA received automatic bids for winning the Southland Conference Tournaments in 2008 and 2009, and for the first time in program history, UTSA is competing in postseason play for the third consecutive year after playing in the WNIT in 2024 and the WBIT in 2025.
With the selection, UTSA Head Women’s Basketball Coach Karen Aston becomes the 15th coach to take three different programs to the NCAA Division I Tournament, having done so at Charlotte in 2009 and at Texas for six consecutive years from 2014-19.
Senior Cheyenne Rowe carries momentum after being selected as the Most Outstanding Player of the American Conference Championship, where she averaged 16.3 points per game, with 8.3 rebounds per game across the tournament. Senior Ereauna Hardaway and junior Idara Udo were named All-Tournament Performers, as Hardaway tallied 14.7 points per game, with nine assists and 5.3 rebounds per game, and Udo averaged a double-double with 10.3 points per game and 10.0 rebounds per game. Also playing a major role, sophomore Mia Hammonds had 8.3 points per game and shone defensively, with six steals and four blocks.
The Huskies (34-0, 20-0 Big East) enter the tournament as the top overall seed, while also ranking first in both the AP Poll and the USA Today/WBCA Coaches Poll.
Led by the winningest coach in NCAA basketball history, Geno Auriemma holds a 1284-165 record and has UConn in the tournament for the 37th consecutive season. The Huskies are the No. 1 seed for the 23rd time, and they’ve competed in every NCAA Tournament since the 1988-89 campaign. The squad has reached an NCAA record, 24 Final Fours and has won a record 12 National Championships. They enter the tournament undefeated for the 10th time in program history.
They lead the nation in several statistical categories, including field goal percentage (52.5), assists/turnover ratio (1.86), field goal percentage defense (33.3), scoring defense (50.4), scoring margin (+38.4), steals per game (15.6) and three-point percentage (39.6).
UConn has two USBWA First-Team All-Americans on its squad, with Azzi Fudd and Sarah Strong receiving the accolade earlier in the week. Fudd is also an AAU Sullivan Award finalist, a Katrina McClain Award finalist, and on the Naismith Trophy Late-Season Team and the Wooden Award Ballot. Strong, meanwhile, was a unanimous Big East Player of the Year and the league’s Defensive Player of the Year en route to National Player of the Year honors by The Athletic and ESPN.
Strong paces the team with 18.5 points per game at 60.1% shooting, and 7.6 rebounds per game, also leading the squad. Defensively, Strong has swiped 111 steals and has blocked 53 shots across the campaign. Fudd averages 17.7 points per game and is one of three players with over 100 assists. Strong has dished out 135 dimes, and KK Arnold leads the group with 158.
The winner between the Roadrunners and Huskies will advance to the Second Round, where they’ll play the victor between No. 8 seed Iowa State and No. 9 seed Syracuse on Monday at Gampel Pavilion with a tip time to be determined at a later date.
Keep up with UTSA Women’s Basketball all season long on goutsa.com and by following the program on Facebook at /UTSAWBB, X (Twitter) @UTSAWBB, and on Instagram @UTSA_WBB.
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