Roadrunners hit the road for Birmingham

UTSA will face Western Kentucky in first round on Wednesday morning

Fresh off a 73-55 win against Old Dominion two days before the Roadrunner basketball team hit the road on Monday for the Conference USA tournament at the Legacy Arena in Birmingham, AL.

"Our guys are really excited. We've been talking about this for weeks," UTSA Head Coach Steve Henson said. "We want to finish the season strong and finish the season feeling good."

For a lot of teams feeling good after the season might mean they won a conference tournament or went far in the NCAA tournament. That day will come for UTSA but for a team that was 5-27 a year ago the good feeling will come from being back in a conference tournament.

First up for the Roadrunners is a meeting with the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers in the first round. In the only meeting between the two this season Western Kentucky beat UTSA 81-66 on January 28 in Bowling Green.

"They are tough," Senior Forward Lucas O'Brien said of Western Kentucky. "We had a lot of really good opportunities on offense. We just didn't follow through on them. We let a couple of their guards get hot early."

The Roadrunners will look for a different result against Western Kentucky this time around. One thing is for sure, this Roadrunner team is not the same as it was when they last played the Hilltoppers.

"We're confident with that last win over ODU," Junior Guard Gino Littles said. "That was a big one for us. We're focusing on working hard and going in to shock the world. We want to turn some heads and show people that we've come to play."

First step in any chance at shocking the world will come against Western Kentucky. The draw didn't do the Roadrunners too many favors. If they get past Western Kentucky their quarterfinal opponent would be Middle Tennessee. A potential semifinal opponent could be Rice, UTEP or Southern Miss.

The other half of the bracket is made up of Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion, Marshall, UAB, Charlotte and Florida Atlantic.

UTSA can knock off Western Kentucky but it will need to show up as the UTSA that beat Old Dominion and not the UTSA that lost on the road to North Texas. The Roadrunners are probably a year away from threatening for a conference semifinal berth but from where they were the last few seasons a win over WKU in the opening round would show they're headed in the right direction.