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Last season UTSA lost what turned out to be the second-to-last game in the Conference USA tournament. Most years that would have meant it was the conference semifinals. In 2020 it turned out to be the first round of the tournament. The Coronavirus pandemic shut down the conference tournament as well as the NCAA tournament not long after UTSA stepped off the court following the loss to UAB.

It was the second straight year that UTSA fell to UAB in the opening round of the tournament.

Eight months have come and gone since that final game of the 2019-20 season. The pandemic has changed the way the 2020-21 season will be played, not just by UTSA but by every college basketball program across the country.

UTSA will open the 2020-21 season this Wednesday when they travel to Norman, Oklahoma to face the Oklahoma Sooners. UTSA has never beaten Oklahoma in five previous meetings. In recent years Oklahoma won in San Antonio two years ago, 87-67 and 85-67 last year in Norman.

The Roadrunners will open the home portion of the schedule on Friday afternoon when they host UT Permian Basin.

Home games will look different this year as UTSA has new guidelines to prevent the spread of Covid. The Convocation Center will be limited to 15 percent capacity (612 fans) and masks will be required of all patrons to enter. There will also not be any courtside seating this season.

Those fans who do make it out to the Convocation Center will see a team that should be much improved from the squad that went 13-19 last season. They will also experience a schedule unlike any the Roadrunners have played before.

At the time of this writing UTSA is scheduled to play 25 games this season. The Roadrunners have seven non-conference games on the schedule and 18 conference games.

This year Conference USA has adopted a new schedule to help minimize the amount of travel by teams. Each team will play a total of eight doubleheaders and a home-and-home with their travel partner over one weekend. The doubleheaders will be played on back-to-back days in the same location.

Assuming every game on the schedule gets played and UTSA is not one of the 12 teams to make the conference tournament the 25 games would be the fewest played by a Roadrunner basketball team ever. As of now the record for fewest games in a season is held by the 1996-97 Roadrunners who played 26 games.

The Roadrunners will enter 2020-21 with some new faces and some familiar faces returning. The combination of old and new should help the Roadrunners improve on their 2019-20 season that finished with a 13-19 record.

Any Roadrunner basketball preview has to start with the duo of Jhivvan Jackson and Keaton Wallace. A year ago Jackson averaged 26.8 points per game and Wallace averaged 18.8 points per game.

Jackson became the Roadrunners all-time leading scorer last season when he moved past Devin Brown in the loss to Western Kentucky last February. Jackson became the first Roadrunner to hit 2,000 career points in the orange and blue. He enters 2020-21 with 2,053 points in his Roadrunner career. The NCAA gave an extra year of eligibility for the loss of the end of last season which means Jackson, if he can stay healthy, could become the first Roadrunner to hit 3,000 points.

Luka Barisic also returns as a key contributor from the Roadrunners front court. Last season Barisic started 21 games and averaged 6.6 points per game. Barisic also finished last season with 95 rebounds.

In addition to Jackson, Wallace and Barisic the Roadrunners will welcome back sophomores Erik Czumbel and Jacob Germany. Both Czumbel and Germany made 10 or more starts in 2019-20. Czumbel finished with 47 assists and 54 defensive rebounds. Germany averaged 5.5 points per game and 4.5 rebounds per game last season.

Adrian Rodriguez will enter his redshirt sophomore season after having played in 23 games last season and making three starts. Rodriguez averaged 1.7 points per game and 3.3 rebounds per game.

UTSA will also welcome a number of new players to town, by way of transfer as well as from the high school ranks.

The new Roadrunners are led by incoming transfer Cedric Alley, Jr. Alley has come to UTSA from the University of Houston. In his two seasons as a Cougar, Alley played in 60 games and made 16 starts. Alley should bring some height and physicality to the Roadrunners frontcourt.

Another incoming transfer is Eric Parrish. Parrish sat out last season and comes to UTSA after playing at Nevada, Bossier Parish College and Akron. Parrish won the award for Louisiana Junior College Player of the Year while at Bossier.

UTSA will also welcome four freshmen to the roster in 2020-21. Three of the four incoming freshmen, Jordan Ivy-Curry, Jaja Sanni and Isaiah Addo-Ankrah come from the Houston area. Freshman forward Lachlan Bofinger comes to UTSA from Sydney, Australia.

With the mix of experienced veterans and talented youngsters the Roadrunners have the ingredients for a good season. The schedule is not overpowering. Aside from the opener against Oklahoma the Roadrunners will likely be able to have a chance at winning most of their games.

Before last season the Roadrunners seemed to be on an upward trajectory. The fanbase will be hoping that last season's 13-19 record was an anomaly and that 2020-21 is like the 2018-19 and 2017-18 seasons in which the Roadrunners finished with winning records and in the case of 2017-18, a postseason berth.

UTSA could certainly challenge for the top half of the conference. They could also find themselves having to scrap and claw every game. There are no certainties with this team but their ceiling is definitely high to begin the season.

Much like the football team in the fall the biggest challenge facing the UTSA basketball team is the pandemic. The biggest victory for the basketball team might be in how many games they are able to play this season. Assuming they are able to play all of their scheduled games and make the conference tournament they will probably allow the 1996-97 team to keep hold of the record for fewest games played in a season.

Here's hoping they get to play as many games as they can. The socially distanced crowds in the Convocation Center could be treated to a really good basketball team.

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