big match this evening for the Zags
The Gonzaga Women will square up against UTSA later today in the opening match of the second-ever WBIT. The match is set to tip at 6:00 p.m. PST, which should give us all a nice little break after the Gonzaga’s Men finish their match against Georgia, and will be hosted in the basketball crazed city of Spokane. If you’re not able to be there live, be sure to tune into ESPN+ for the stream.
The UTSA Roadrunners had a strong ‘24-25 campaign that saw them finish 26-4 (17-1), win the regular season American Athletic Conference, and then, like Gonzaga, fall to defeat in their opening conference tournament game, which resulted in the vanishing of their chances at the Big Dance. While it must’ve been heartbreaking to miss out on the NCAA Tournament, their overall record is the best in program history and represent continued season to season improvement since the ‘20-21 campaign when the team went 2-18.
Their strong year resulted in some end of the season awards for the Roadrunners including Head Coach Karen Aston picking up a unanimous AAC Head Coach of the Year selection, 6’0” senior guard Jordyn Jenkins taking home the AAC Player of the Year, and 5’6” graduate transfer Nina De Leon Negron being awarded Newcomer of the Year.
Jordyn Jenkins will be definitely be a player to watch tonight as she finished the season with a stat line of 18.8 points, 6.9 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 1.3 steals, 1.2 blocks, and 2 turnovers. She will do the majority of her damage from inside the arc as she averaged 12 shots per game at a 50.4% clip from that range, but she can still step out and be a threat with her 34.2% three point shooting, although that should be fairly rare with her averaging just 2.5 shots from deep per game.
The team’s second-leading scorer comes in the form of junior guard Sydney Love with her 10.1 points, 3.6 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.4 blocks, and 2.6 turnovers. While she ranks second on the team in three point attempts per game with 3.4, I’m not certain she should be doing this as she averages just 24.5% from deep. Expect to see the guard on the floor often as she leads the team in minutes played with 32 per match.
The aforementioned De Leon Negron lead her team in assists with 5.6 while also chipping in 9.2 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.6 steals, 0.1 blocks, and 2.5 turnovers. She has an interesting shooting split with her 34.2% three point shooting compared to 40.5% two point shooting.
The other player of note comes in the form of 6’1” sophomore forward with her 8.8 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.0 assist, 0.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, and 2.3 turnovers. It’s impressive that she was able to put up those numbers while averaging just 24.4 minutes, but looking closer, you can see those limited minutes may likely relate to her 3.3 fouls per game. You take the good with the bad, am I right?
As a team, the Roadrunners don’t really have a lot of standout numbers compared to the nation with the exception of offensive rebounds where they’re ranked 9th nationally with 16 per game, blocks with 4.1 per game that checks in at 51st nationally, and turnovers forced with 17.1 which ranks in the top 75. Defense is clearly more than just these numbers, but it likely contributed to a team defense that held their opponents to an AAC-best 56.1 points per game.
While I haven’t watched this team yet, those are interesting areas of dominance because the Zags have bullied the majority of their opponents in offensive rebounds and they seem to struggle against teams with a strong interior defensive presence. That combined with a frontcourt consisting of four players measuring 6’0” to 6’2” should give the Bulldogs all they can handle. Let’s hope the team learned something after their loss to Oregon State when it comes to navigating around and into the opposition bigs.
They’re a pretty average team from a shooting perspective with an overall shooting mark of 40.4%, 45.4% from two on 42.2 shots, and 29% from three on 18 shots. Their offense will be supplemented by their respectable 17.1 free throws per game of which they convert 73.4% of their attempts. This results in a team averaging 66.5 points per game, 150th in the nation.
In their four losses this season, the Roadrunners basically failed to meet their season averages in the most important areas. They scored less, just 63 points, shot poorly, 35.7% overall and 28.6% from three, only grabbed 13 offensive rebounds, and failed to turn over their opponent with just 14.3. Their game log shows that they had worse games in specific fields, but these defeats seem to feature a team struggling across the board. So, it seems like the Bulldogs will need to control the glass, limit their two point efficiency to force the ball outside, and, say it with me now, stop turning the ball over.
As it stands, the Men look like they will defeat the 9th seeded Georgia Bulldogs and I hope their dominant performance extends to the Women so they can continue forward in the WBIT.