It was just over three years ago when I covered my first UW men’s basketball game – the first Cowboy

Photo: Zach Spadt

The date was January 16, 2008, and Wyoming was hosting Air Force , which had been ranked as high as  No. 14 in the nation. 

It was one of Laramie’s famously cold winter evenings, but not even the cold could deter me from the game.  Why? Because I was finally, finally going to cover a Wyoming Cowboy men’s basketball game up close.

The once-momentous program was now in a period of transition; Steve McClain, the former head coach, had led the Cowboys to a thrilling NCAA tournament run in the 2001-02 season and a 157-115 record.  He had been fired the previous season.

New head coach Heath Schroyer brought with him the very sense of youth and optimism.

 Schroyer’s program included a number of talented playerrs who indicated another rise to prominence for Cowboy hoops.

Perhaps that rise would even occur on this particular January night. 

Trailing by 10 points against a tough conference rival, Wyoming showed its moxie and dug down deep, and standout guards Brandon Ewing and Brad Jones stepped up their game to help the Cowboys rally back and force overtime against Air Force.

When Ewing buried a 3-pointer with 3:22 remaining in overtime to give the Cowboys a 62-56 lead, it looked as though Wyoming had the very pivotal win needed over a gritty opponent.

Then, by fate of the cosmos – or the basketball gods – the winds of the Wyoming plains blew the Cowboys in the cruelest of directions.

Air Force rallied back to tie the game at 62, and, with just under a minute to play, Cowboy forward Joseph Taylor missed two crucial free throws from the line.

The Falcons got the ball back and ultimately scored on a backdoor-cut, inbounds pass play with 1.6 seconds remaining. 

  For the Cowboys, it was a disheartening loss and a story that has become all too familiar for Wyoming fans. Three years later not much has changed in the former Dome of Doom.

 Since that inaugural game, my BI experiences with Cowboy football and men’s basketball have taken me from bowl games to buzzer beaters, blocked punts to botched-dunk backflips. 

 However, I still have yet to encounter a Cowboy basketball team who is truly competitive in the Mountain West Conference.

It is now February 2, 2011, and I am sitting at the press table at the Arena-Auditorium watching the front-runner for national player of the year, Jimmer Fredette, light the Cowboys up like a post-Fourth of July, clearance-sale-purchased Roman candle war.

The Cowboys are being outlasted by the No. 9 BYU Cougars, and The Dome of Doom now sits almost completely empty for home Cowboy games. 

 Yes, the current state of Wyoming men’s basketball rests at the bottom of an unfortunate ravine.

Schroyer has become the symbolic target of the Cowboy’s indignation, and, to be certain, the statistics don’t bode well for Schoyer’s resume.

Wyoming has gone just 49-66 under Schroyer, and the Cowboys haven’t had a winning record in conference play since Schroyer took over as head coach. 

The Cowboys have appeared just once in the postseason during Schroyer’s tenure.

 A first-round exit in the College Basketball Invitational is hardly enough for Cowboy fans who were accustomed to contending for conference titles and NCAA tournament bids in the early 2000’s. 

In Schroyer’s defense, fate has been particularly unkind to the Cowboys. A variety of circumstances prevented Wyoming from ever operating at full capacity.

 Injuries and inexperience tormented the Cowboys throughout Schroyer’s tenure – particularly multiple devastating knee injuries to Afam Muojeke, a player with one of the most promising debuts.

A multitude of player departures under Schroyer has also depleted the Cowboys’ depth and capacity to sustain a successful program. 

One of the biggest hindrances during the Schroyer era has been the lack of a true post presence. 

Centers like Mikhail Linksens, Travis Nelson, and Boubacar Sylla never materialized into the robust inside forces, and Adam Waddell certainly reminds fans more of Josh Davis – a tenaciously intense power forward – than Uche Nsonwu-Amadi. 

The Cowboys haven’t had a true big-time shooter who could step up and consistently knock down shots in clutch situations since Marcus Bailey.  

Although Sean Ogirri could be a cold-blooded assassin in his own right; he played just one season in the brown in gold.

There’s no denying that the Cowboys don’t leave it out on the floor every single evening.

 Schroyer’s teams play passionately, and they have risen to the occasion time and time again – as they did in a gutsy, lionhearted performance against BYU on Wednesday night. 

The problem is, again, that the Cowboys have come so close so many times when they are physically and skillfully overmatched, but they simply haven’t been able to notch a signature win during Schroyer’s tenure.

Significant change needs to happen in the Cowboy basketball program, and it needs to happen soon. 

It can happens under Schroyer or under a new head man. 

The Wyoming basketball program has a tradition, which runs as deep as the Mississippi, of being a prominent force.

Cowboy fans should not have to settle for half-empty arenas and “maybe next year” rallying cries.

It’s time for February and March games to be relevant again not because of the caliber of Wyoming’s opponents. It’s time for the AA to rock like the 9:30 Club again. 

It’s time for Cowboy basketball to step back onto the main-stage, and Cowboy supporters should be as vocal as possible.

And until it happens, I’ll be watching Josh Davis stuffing put-back dunks home and swatting Dan Dickau to the moon on Youtube. 

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