UTSA fires men’s basketball head coach Steve Henson

SAN ANTONIO – The University of Texas at San Antonio dismissed men’s basketball coach Steve Henson on Thursday afternoon after eight seasons.

The university made the move one day after the Roadrunners lost their first-round game to Temple at the American Athletic Conference men’s basketball tournament on Wednesday.

According to UTSA’s athletics website, Henson’s contract was already set to expire on March 31, 2024.

“I want to thank Coach Henson for his commitment to UTSA Basketball and to this university,” UTSA vice president of intercollegiate athletics Lisa Campos said in a statement Thursday. “He has been a first-class representative of UTSA and has taught his student-athletes life lessons that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. We wish Coach Henson and his family the very best in the future.”

Henson found early success in San Antonio, notching a 20-win season during the 2017-18 season, but he couldn’t build a consistent winner in the ensuing years. The Roadrunners went on to have losing seasons in four of their next six years, including an 11-21 record in 2023-24.

The 2023-24 season was also Henson’s and UTSA’s first in the AAC after he coached in Conference USA throughout his first seven years. The Roadrunners finished 5-13 in league play, which drew them into a five-way tie for last place with Rice, Temple, Tulane and Wichita State. Rice also fired its head coach, Scott Pera, on Thursday.

Henson was an assistant coach when he came to San Antonio in 2016 highly recommended by his boss, then-Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger.

Kruger’s five-decades-long career took him as far west as Las Vegas and as far east as New York City. That included a four-season stint leading the Pan American University Broncs (now the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley) in Edinburg when they were a NCAA Division I independent in men’s basketball from 1982 to 1986.

Kruger’s recommendation of Henson for the UTSA job was not his only assistant coach to become a first-time NCAA Division I during the 2016 college basketball offseason. A second assistant coach, Lew Hill, was selected to lead UTRGV, Kruger’s old stomping grounds.

Henson and Hill helped the Sooners reach the 2016 NCAA Final Four.

Henson thanked Roadrunner fans in a message posted on his Twitter account Friday night.