What If… Shaq takes up UTSA’s offer

Previously in the What If Series: What If… No UTSA Football | What If… Traylor went to Tech | What If… UTSA became a Basketball School | What If… UTSA didn’t leave Conference USA

Basketball in San Antonio in the late 80s was in a time of transition. The Spurs weren’t great but the fanbase held some hope as they knew that eventually the first overall pick in 1987, David Robinson, would come to town after he completed his required two-year stint in the Navy as a graduate of the Naval Academy.

At the collegiate level UTSA was building itself up to possibly be a big-time basketball school. The Roadrunners made their first NCAA tournament berth in 1988 and were perennially near the top of their new conference (Trans-American Athletic Conference) under head coach Ken Burmeister.

It was at the high school level that San Antonio was making national headlines in the form of a young center playing at Robert G. Cole High School named Shaquille O’Neal. O’Neal arrived at Cole as a junior in the 1987-88 season and in his two years there the team went 68-1 and won the Texas Class 3A State Championship in 1988-89.

O’Neal went on to become a legend at LSU under coach Dale Brown. Brown had met O’Neal when O’Neal was living in Europe while his step-father was stationed in Germany. LSU is where Shaq ended up but it wasn’t the only school to offer him a scholarship. There were numerous schools around the country that wanted Shaq to attend their school, including one school located 22 miles to the northwest of Cole High School. UTSA was the first school to offer a scholarship to Shaquille O’Neal but it couldn’t overcome the friendship O’Neal had with the LSU coach. But what if O’Neal enjoyed his two years at Cole so much he decided to stay in San Antonio. What if Shaquille O’Neal had chosen UTSA as his college?

What if Shaquille O’Neal had been a Roadrunner?

If Shaq had chosen UTSA he would have arrived to great fanfare on campus in the fall of 1989 and joined a Roadrunner basketball team that was two years removed from its first trip to the NCAA tournament but coming off a 15-13 season. Assuming he stays at UTSA the same amount of time he stayed at LSU which was three seasons, O’Neal would have been at UTSA from the 1989-90 season until the 1991-92 season. In real life a Shaq-less UTSA went 64-23 those three years and reached the TAAC semifinals two of those years and were Southland Conference finalists in the first year in that league, 1991-92.

Based on how Shaquille O’Neal dominated Class 3A at Cole and the SEC at LSU its fair to say that UTSA adding Shaq to its roster might have led to more than 64 wins in that three season stretch as it is entirely possible that Shaq leads UTSA to playing a few more games and possibly a win in the NCAA tournament. Shaq would have been playing with some of the best Roadrunner basketball teams in program history. Even without Shaq the 1990-91 team averaged a school record 90.7 points per game. An offensive threat like Shaq would have loved leading a team like that.

Shaq on the Roadrunners would have completely changed the trajectory of the program. UTSA would have gotten national recognition every time Shaquille O’Neal touched the floor. Even in the early 90s with no internet he would have made UTSA known and its likely every game he played at UTSA would be a media circus, especially as the media tried to figure out why the best player in the country had chosen a school like UTSA.

In our timeline the Shaq-less Roadrunners were in a period of transition as the 80s turned to the 90s. Ken Burmeister left UTSA after the 1990 season to become an assistant coach at DePaul. He was replaced by Stu Starner who led UTSA into the Southland Conference and coached from 1990-95. With Shaq on the roster its possible that Burmeister decides to stay at UTSA and when UTSA goes looking for a new conference home in 1991 they might be able to look beyond the Southland Conference.

A UTSA with Shaq would have looked really good to the Metro Conference which at that time was made up of Louisville, Tulane, Virginia Tech and Southern Miss. In 1991 that conference added Charlotte, Southern Miss and Virginia Commonwealth. If UTSA joins the Metro Conference they might have been in a good spot four years later in 1995 when the Metro merged with the Great Midwest Conference to create Conference USA.

What might UTSA look like today if Shaq had played for the Roadrunners?

Shaq playing for UTSA could have sped up the growth of the university by decades. Countless students who had never heard of UTSA would want to apply to go there because it was the place Shaquille O’Neal was playing. It’s possible that UTSA becomes San Antonio’s basketball team with Shaq on the roster and ends up playing more games at Hemisfair Arena and later at the Alamodome to keep up with ticket demand.

Getting Shaq on campus might have even led to the building of a new Convocation Center that could seat 10 or 12 thousand people. The new Convocation Center would even now still be called the House that Shaq built. It’s also possible the influx of money from becoming consistent visitors to the NCAA tournament leads to UTSA having a basketball training facility by 2000 and if UTSA had been a founding member of Conference USA its possible they could today be in one of the power four conferences like Louisville and Virginia Tech. It’s also possible the Roadrunners had a stint in a power conference but got left behind and have now found themselves in the American with former Metro Conference foes Charlotte and Tulane.

That’s the fun thing about What Ifs. There are limitless possibilities with them. It’s safe to say a UTSA that is able to convince Shaquille O’Neal to play college basketball in the Hills of Oak Cedar could have had limitless possibilities in its future.

Next Week: What if… UTSA Baseball wins an NCAA tournament game before 2025