UTSA Info
Head Coach: Steve Henson
Location: San Antonio, TX
Conference: Conference USA
Nickname: Roadrunners
Mascot: Rowdy the Roadrunnery
Last time out: Beat Bethany
Typical Rotation Depth: 8ish
Line: Nebraska by 10.5
Tempo: LET IT FLY
Style: High Assists/High 3pt Attempts
4 Factors Good: Not turning the ball over on offense
4 Factors Bad: Killed on defensive boards, putting teams on the FT line
| Four Factors | |||
| Effective FG%: | 51.2 165 | 50.5 159 | 50.9 |
| Turnover %: | 17.2 74 | 19.6 156 | 19.3 |
| Off. Reb. %: | 26.0 260 | 34.6 317 | 29.2 |
| FTA/FGA: | 35.4 148 | 44.2 317 | 34.1 |
Shirt not wear: Blue, orange, anything bird related
Fun Fact: UTSA first started playing basketball as a school in 1981. They joined the Atlantic Sun in 1986. They then moved to the Southland Conference in 1991. After a stopover in the WAC for a year in 2012, they jumped to Conference USA in 2013 after is was raided by the AAC. Got that?
Fun Fact: HC Steve Henson is an old Big 8 point guard who played for Lon Kruger at Kansas St. Henson has been an assistant under Kruger at Illinois, the Atlanta Hawks, UNLV, and Oklahoma.
Fun Fact: UTSA has a win in the tourney, beating Alabama St. in a play-in game back in 2011 when they were still in the Southland
Halftime: Miles Kids Camp shootaround
Most Frequent Lineups over the last 5 games
Nebraska
| PG | SG | SF | PF | C | Pct | |
| 1 |
15.1 |
UTSA
| PG | SG | SF | PF | C | Pct | |
| 1 |
16.2 |
UTSA shoots a ton of 3s yet manages to almost always have someone on the court who doesn't
Players to watch: Nick Allen
The two leading scorers are freshmen guards Jhivvan Jackson and Keaton Wallace. Junior Nick Allen is their most efficient scorer, sporting a 66.7 eFG% against Div 1 opponents. UTSA is lacking in the height department and the 6'8" Allen is the only quasi-post player that's a big threat to score.
The Skinny
Welcome to the start of The Three Games They Must Not Lose™ Winter break home stand. The Huskers are starting to look like a team that could make some noise in conference after the Five Games of Death™ schedule but with only Minnesota in the unexpected outcome column have no error for margin in 2017.
The run and gun Roadrunners are one of those pay game teams where they should act as a RPI hack but are also a combination of decent and offensively explosive enough to come in and win; Closer than expected games vs Tulsa, Bradley, and Oklahoma serve as notice. UTSA will want to turn this into a track meet and while Nebraska will probably get sloppy at times in this one the team is too veteran and too experienced in the ways of fast teams to fall into this trap. Expect Nebraska defensively to handle PG De Nicolao with Watson and Evan Taylor and Anton Gill to spend their times beating on the two high power guards Jackson and Wallace. The Roadrunners will take and make 3s but the key for Nebraska defensively will be to defend the paint with minimal help and fouling. The length of our frontcourt should be up for the task.
Offensively I think you'll see us once again try and get Jordy going to start the game; I think we're looking at these two games as whether or not to relegate Jordy to the bench or even out of the rotation for a game as Stetson seems like the small ball opponent you might try the Copeland/Roby starting lineup. In the half court you're going to see Nebraska attack the paint all night against the hacking, non-shot blocking Roadrunners. Expect Nebraska to shoot at least 20 and hopefully make the majority.
It will be tough to truly put away this team as their entire style is "frantic comeback." What you'd like to see tonight is putting them away enough early as they've capable of scoring in bunches and hopefully getting something going with our post game.
Prediction: Nebraska 80 - UTSA 70
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