UTSA begins busy week with 66-56 win against UC Irvine

box score

RICHMOND, Ky. – Junior Devin Gibson scored 19 points and UTSA improved to 3-0 for the first time since the 2004-05 season with a 66-56 victory against UC Irvine on the first day of the O’Reilly Auto Parts College Basketball Exprience Classic Richmond Subregional, which is being played at McBrayer Arena.

The Roadrunners extended their non-conference winning streak to nine games and now have won 12 of their past 14 non-league matchups. The Anteaters fell to 2-2 on the season in dropping the first-ever meeting between the two schools.

Gibson scored 12 of his 19 in the second half and was 7-for-10 from the field overall. The Cy-Falls High product added four rebounds, four assists and three steals and also extended his made free throw streak to 16 before missing from the line for the first time this season 12 minutes into the second half (finished 5-for-6).

Seniors Terry Fields and Morris Smith IV scored 11 apiece for UTSA, which shot 50 percent (25-50) from the field and scored 40 points in the paint. Senior Demarco Stepter pulled down a team-high eight rebounds to go along with eight points, while seniors Omar Johnson and Josh Bonney posted eight and seven points, respectively. The Roadrunners also forced 18 UC Irvine turnovers, nine on steals, and tallied 19 points off the miscues.

UTSA used a 9-2 run over the final six and a half minutes of the first half to build a seven-point lead, the largest by either team in the frame. Fields had five points, one assist and a steal during the stretch and sophomore Sei Paye capped the run with a layup off a feed from Fields to make it 34-27.

Eric Wise scored 15 of UC Irvine’s 27 points, going 5-of-7 from the floor and 5-for-6 from the line in the half, while Fields led UTSA with nine.

The UTSA run continued through the first 4:37 of the second half. The Anteaters cut the deficit to 34-31 on four consecutive points from Darren Moore in the first 1:27, but the Roadrunners responded by scoring 10 unanswered, the last two on a leaning bank shot by Gibson from the left side to make it 44-31.

The Roadrunners increased their lead to 15 on a rainmaker from the right wing by Smith IV, his second of the half, making it a 25-10 run over a 13-minute span going back to the 6:31 mark of the first half.

The lead grew to as many as 17 on a Gibson layup at the midway point of the second and UC Irvine would get no closer than eight down the stretch, as the Roadrunners held on for their 13th road win in the last 25 tries.

UC Irvine was held to 39.2-percent (20-51) shooting, including just 3-of-13 from behind the arc. Michael Hunter joined Wise in double figures with 15, while Wise and Adam Folker grabbed a game-best nine boards apiece.

The Roadrunners will face Fairleigh Dickinson (1-3), which lost to host Eastern Kentucky, 68-39, in the first game of the subregional, at 7 p.m. (CT) Tuesday. That game can be heard live in the San Antonio listening area on 92.5 FM The Outlaw.