It’s time for another episode of the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast! In this episode, host Howard Megdal is joined by UTSA head coach Karen Aston. Aston and the Roadrunners were on their way to a new high point in the program’s ascension: an NCAA Tournament bid. However, a hiccup against Rice in the AAC Tournament quarterfinals on Monday has put a wrench in those plans.
The two discuss UTSA’s 26-4 season, Jordyn Jenkins‘s place in UTSA history, and whether it even makes sense to value one week’s worth of conference tournament games more than an entire regular-season slate when determining who does and doesn’t get into the NCAA Tournament by default.
Megdal on balancing what prospective auto qualifier teams should be rewarded for:
I’m coming at this, just full disclosure, [as] somebody who loves conference tournaments. I love the idea that a team can get hot at the right time and make a march run, and it gives you a second chance opportunity [to make the NCAA Tournament].
Where I lose the understanding is the idea that that second chance should supersede what a team manages to accomplish over four, five, six months. You go back to it and you say, “All right, that’s very exciting.” You go win three games in three days, or four games in four days, whatever it ends up being. But it’s not any kind of real evaluation of how good a team is.
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Aston on what it has meant for her to see Jordyn Jenkins grow as a player and a person:
I mean, there’s no question that she has a unique skill set and feel for the game that is pretty natural. She does some things that you don’t teach. Her footwork is great and just her efficiency is off the charts.
But you know what’s been fun, to be honest with you … is just how much she’s evolved as a leader on our team, and you know how much she’s enjoyed the process of growing her own self, as a person and as a teammate.
It’s been really, really enjoyable for me as a coach to see someone that, when she arrived here, wasn’t sure about a whole lot. And then she went the through the adversity of kind of finding herself again, and then the injury, and now she’s found herself again, and so just going through all of that and seeing how much she’s put into it.
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