It was just over three years ago when I covered my first UW men’s basketball game – the first Cowboy sporting event that I ever covered for the Branding Iron. 

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. 

    Email: mmorri18@uwyo.edu

Mike Morris

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The last time the Wyoming Cowboys and Air Force Falcons met, both programs were stranded at the bottom of the deepest, darkest of caverns in the college basketball world.

The Cowboys and Falcons shared dismal records entering their play-in game matchup of the 2010 Mountain West Conference tournament—Wyoming was 3-13 in conference play and 10-20 overall, and Air Force entered the contest with an even worse mark, a 1-15 conference record and an 8-20 overall offering—and even the most negligible signs of hope were a Rocky Mountain winter away for both teams.

The game was just as ugly as the records would indicate, but when Air Force emerged a 59-40 victor and moved on to lose to a goliath New Mexico squad in the next round, the Falcons were temporarily unburdened with the MWC torch of futility.

Nearly a year later, the Falcons appear to have righted the ship and are headed back toward again becoming a competitive team in the conference.

Wyoming, on the other hand, continues to wake up on Groundhog Day every morning.

The Cowboys (8-10, 1-3) enter Saturday’s matchup at Air Force (1:30 p.m. MST, televised on The Mtn.) with a 17-game road losing streak.

The last time Wyoming won a regular season game away from the Arena-Auditorium was on December 12, 2009–when Wyoming defeated Northern Colorado 76-70 at the Casper Events Center.

The Cowboys were technically the home team in that contest, however, so to find Wyoming’s last true win on the road requires a trip back to February 28, 2009, and a trip down to Colorado Springs.

It was on that afternoon when Wyoming nipped Air Force 65-62 at Clune Arena – although no one at the time could have possibly guessed it would be the Cowboys’ last regular season road victory for a span of over 700 days and counting.

Hamstrung with a series of injuries–most notably the one to Afam Muojeke which has sidelined the Cowboy star for each of the past two conference seasons–a young and inexperienced Wyoming team has struggled since the time of that victory in Colorado Springs.

The Cowboys enter Saturday’s contest with a streak of determination–eager to atone for a poor performance in a 68-51 loss to Utah last Saturday in which Wyoming shot just 35 percent from the field–and on an entire week of rest.

Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer commented in his post-game press conference on Saturday that the week of rest will be crucial to the team’s performance and health–most notably in making sure that key injured contributors Adam Waddell, JayDee Luster, and Djibril Thiam are in better physical condition than they have been in recent weeks.

The Cowboys will need all three players at full strength to compete with a much-improved Falcon squad.

Although Air Force (10-7) has an identical 1-3 conference mark to that of the Cowboys, the Falcons’ three losses have come against San Diego State, BYU, and UNLV–teams with a 52-6 combined overall record. Air Force was competitive in all three games.

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The Utes (8-10, 1-3 MWC) knocked down 12 of 27 attempts from beyond the arc to establish a big lead early in the first half and ultimately put the game out of reach, defeating Wyoming 68-51 on Saturday afternoon in Laramie.

The Cowboys (8-10, 1-3 MWC) shot 35.8 percent from the field and hit just two 3-pointers. In the first half, Wyoming made just 9 of 29 field goal attempts.

“I thought we were just very inept offensively, and (Utah) had a lot to do with that,” Wyoming head coach, Heath Schroyer, said in his post-game press conference. “We really had a hard time making jump shots. We’re not going to win any games when we shoot 35 percent from the floor, 20 percent from three, and 61 percent from the free-throw line.”

After falling behind 37-21 at half, Wyoming whittled Utah’s lead down to single digits midway through the second half, but every single time the Cowboys seemed to approach striking distance, the Utes answered with a clutch three-pointer.

Trailing 46-28 early in the second half, the Cowboys went on an 8-0 run punctuated by a Desmar Jackson runner, which floated just over an outstretched defender and dropped into the bucket to pull the Cowboys within 10 with 15:01 remaining.

7’3” Utah center David Foster knocked down a turnaround jumper to put Utah back up by 12, but Wyoming immediately answered back with a JayDee Luster 3-pointer, one of only two the Cowboys were able to hit the entire afternoon, to pull within 48-39 with 13:26 to go.

“We came out of a timeout and just didn’t execute, and they hit the three and got all the momentum back,” Wyoming center Adam Waddell said. “We got down right away, and we couldn’t pull back.”

Wyoming had no answer for Clyburn, who posed an inextricable matchup problem throughout the afternoon as the difference maker for the Utes. Clyburn scored 24 points and pulled down 12 rebounds. Watkins added 16 for the Utes, and Shawn Glover chipped in 10.

Jackson led the way with 17 points for the Cowboys, and M’Baye added 11 points and 10 rebounds.

The Cowboys, however, were once again hampered by injuries – especially in the frontcourt.

Waddell and senior forward Djibril Thiam were both slowed by nagging injuries, and Luster was also returning from a hip-pointer injury and was not at 100 percent.

The Cowboys will have a week to rest before they travel to Air Force next Saturday afternoon. 

“We’ve got to get healthy,” Schroyer said. 

“It’s been tough not having guys in practice; we haven’t been able to go 5-on-5, full court for a long time, and that’s part of the reason why we haven’t played well the past two games.”

Mike Morris

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The nightmare got a little more terrifying after Moss’ latest performance on Wednesday night in Fort Worth.

The junior TCU guard ravaged the Cowboys with 27 points and 10 rebounds–both season highs–helping the Horned Frogs cruise to a commanding 78-60 win.

TCU (10-8, 1-2 MWC) used a 12-2 run at the conclusion of the first half to break open a tight contest, allowing the Horned Frogs to take what would prove to be an indomitable 39-23 lead into the break.

Moss had a Texas-sized hand in the Horned Frogs’ overwhelming performance.

A premier performer against the Cowboys throughout his career–Moss had scored in double figures in three of his previous four contests against Wyoming, playing a crucial role in each of TCU’s 3 victories during that span – Moss took things to another level on Wednesday.

Moss poured on the points, shooting 9-17 from the field and knocking down six shots from beyond the arc, and the 6’2” guard showcased every bit of his athleticism against the Cowboys, creating matchup problems all over the court and concluding the evening as the game’s leading rebounder.

When the Ronnie Moss highlight show wasn’t dazzling the Daniel-Meyer Coliseum, it was a slew of other Horned Frogs who stepped up to pave the way.

Forward Carlon Green dropped 16 points in his best conference performance to date, and Nikola Cerina, Amric Fields, and Greg Hill all were in double figures with 10 points each.

It was a disappointing performance from the Cowboys (8-9, 1-1 MWC), who were coming off their biggest victory of the season – a 67-66 thriller over New Mexico after Francisco Cruz’s buzzer beater nipped the Lobos.

There would be no heroics this time, as a dismal outside shooting performance doomed Wyoming.

The Cowboys hit just four of 18 attempts from beyond the three-point arc, compared to the Horned Frogs’ sharpshooting 10-21 performance.

Cruz led Wyoming with 16 points, and Amath M’Baye added 13, but Wyoming simply could not establish any offensive rhythm against TCU–a poor showing which was due in part to the injury bug which has plagued Wyoming all season.

Senior forward Djibril Thiam did not make the trip due to a nagging turf toe injury, and junior guard JayDee Luster did not travel either as a result of a hip pointer injury he aggravated in practice this week.

Junior forward Adam Waddell, who has been hampered all season with an Achilles injury, showed signs of brilliance against New Mexico on Saturday, scoring 16 points and pulling down eight rebounds in just 23 minutes of play.

Waddell’s effectiveness was limited against the Horned Frogs, though, as the ankle flared up again during the week and slowed the Cowboys’ big man down.

Wyoming took perhaps an even more disheartening shot on Wednesday when it learned that junior guard Afam Muojeke will miss the remainder of the season due to severe knee injury which also ended his 2009-10 campaign and has lingered ever sence.

Muojeke had been severely slowed by the injury whenever he was able to make it onto the court this season, but he apparently reinjured the same knee

Sources indicated that Muojeke will likely undergo surgery next week.

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Sunshine grabs a football and throws it 60-some yards and hits the formerly-racist-but-now-accepting-of-his-black-teammates linebacker Gerry Bertier in the shoulder pads.

I hear this is how Austyn Carta-Samuels’ brief two-year career began at the University of Wyoming. That’s of course leaving out the fact that we already had a quarterback, because all we had was Dax Crum. Also, Carta-Samuels best attribute as a signal-caller was not his arm; it was his ability to use his legs. I won’t go as far as to say he throws like a girl, because that’s a third grade insult, but I will say that he throws like he’s from California. (Nor am I suggesting that the Cowboys had any sort of racial divide like in that movie, just to clear that up)

I guess the only thing that makes sense about this analogy is the blond haired kid from California.

Last year I saw an absolutely poignant photo of the football star someone caught while shooting a basketball game. Carta-Samuels, sporting a tight, white polo shirt with the collar popped up ever so stylishly, wearing a backwards LA Dodgers hat with his arm around some young lady right in the front row of the AA – like he thought he was LeBron or something.

I guess I’m not surprised he left, I’m just surprised there wasn’t a one-hour special on The Mtn., where he proclaimed that he was “Taking his talents to South Beach.”

The first way our program is going to get any better is if Christensen can build a recruiting base over a few years. In the months since the Cowboys finished their season, that hasn’t exactly happened.

Strong safety Shamiel Gary, kicker Ian Watts, wide receiver David Tooley, and, of course, the ‘Magna’ Carta-Samuels have all left the program.

Aside from “Remember the Titans” analogies, perhaps the other thing that the exit of Carta-Samuels brings to mind is similar exits of players from the Cowboy basketball team during the past few years. Scholarship players have bolted from the hoops team like it was going out of style in the years since Heath Schroyer has been coach.

Apparently, it’s becoming an epidemic in the likes of overrated athletic programs on this campus, i.e. football and basketball.

I understand the desire to leave a place like Laramie, especially in mid-January. California sounds really nice this time of year. On top of the ruthless, frigid weather, I couldn’t imagine playing for the Cowboys, it’s hard enough to watch them.

Not that anyone cares, but I also don’t believe he can be viewed as a highly desired prospect. There are deceiving statistics that might make teams think so, but all you have to do is watch him play.

He threw for 3,655 yards and 19 touchdowns with only 13 interceptions in two seasons, and he rushed for 758 yards and six touchdowns. The Cowboys won nine games and lost 13 that he started.

I don’t see him as a quarterback that can sustain drives, and I don’t believe that he’s anything more than a high school-style, running quarterback that is entirely too hesitant to throw the football sometimes.

Yes, he played a tough schedule both years that he was here. Yes, his receiving core and offensive line wasn’t outstanding. But the one thing I always wanted to see, and never did, was a big upset win from the guy.

In the past two years, Wyoming played No. 2 Texas (eventual BCS national runner up), BYU, TCU and Utah in 2009 when they were all very good teams, No. 3 Boise State this year, and another run against TCU and Utah this year. TCU won the Rose Bowl and Utah was ranked all season.

There’s no question that this schedule was quite formidable, but here are a few more stats that stick out to me.

Of his nine wins, not one came against a ranked opponent, and the combined record of the teams that the Cowboys defeated in the last two years with Carta-Samuels under center (all but two) is 43-66. Six of those points came from 1-AA Independent Southern Utah, which Wyoming beat 28-20 this year at home, and Wyoming’s combined margin of victory in seven of Carta-Samuels’ nine wins was 26 points. It’s largest margin of victory in that stretch was eight points.

The two wins not included in that stretch were against CSU this year when the Cowboys won 44-0, and their 2009 win over New Mexico 37-13. By the way, New Mexico has had two straight 1-11 seasons, with it’s one win this year coming against Carta-Samuels and the Cowboys.

It’s not that he didn’t do some good things as a true freshman, but that bowl run still seems to me as six wins against teams the Cowboys were supposed to beat. It was the same story this year. Three wins against teams we were supposed to beat – and not a single other win for that matter.

Did you ever notice how NFL teams switch quarterbacks after three losses even if it’s not the quarterback’s fault sometimes? I think Cowboy fans can view this as that sort of shift – even if it wasn’t a decision made by the coaching staff.

Sure, it’s obviously harsh to blame all this on one kid from California, but I’ll be the first to say I’m not devastated by his departure.

Later bro’, hang ten.

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Mike Morris:

The Cowboys picked up their most significant win of the season – and perhaps in recent program history – on Saturday when junior guard Paco Cruz hit a desperation shot at the buzzer to give Wyoming a 67-66 win over a good New Mexico team.

Wyoming had been shakier than a first-time snowboarder on a double black diamond in its first 15 contests, but against New Mexico, the Cowboys finally, finally played to their potential and put together a complete 40 minutes. It was the type of performance which – if the Cowboys can find a way to replicate it – gives reason to believe Wyoming can truly be competitive throughout the remainder of the MWC conference schedule. The intensity and toughness of a returning Adam Waddell was especially reassuring, as Waddell put up 16 and 8 against the Lobos in just 23 minutes, and New Mexico simply had no one who could match up with the 6’10 big man on Saturday.

If Waddell’s health continues to improve and the Cowboys continue to develop chemistry and depth – Daylen Harrison had 17 points off the bench against the Lobos – Wyoming men’s basketball will experience a truly exciting spring for the first time in years.

The status of Afam Muojeke’s injured knee still presides over the team’s post-season aspirations, and Muojeke is still nowhere near being able to channel his capability to be one of the most dominant scorers in the entire conference.

The Cowboys will need to continue to improve and develop over the remainder of the conference schedule and try to lock up a five or a six seed for the conference tournament in March.

If by then Muojeke’s knee has healed enough for him to be an effective scorer, Wyoming will be very much capable of putting together a magical 3-game run in the MWC tourney and, yes, dancing with a little March Madness.

As for the Cowgirls, a stellar 11-3 start – by an experienced squad which seems to improve with each game – has expectations soaring in Laramie.

A conference title, 22 or more wins, and an appearance in the NCAA tournament all seem more and more possible with each passing victory by the Cowgirls.

Zach Greubel:

After the men’s basketball team’s embarrassing loss to Colorado State and before their thrilling victory over New Mexico I thought conference play might be the same as it was last season- atrocious. However, the win against the Lobos may spark new life. Granted, they beat San Diego State at this point last season and still had a miserable season in conference play. On the bright side, junior center Adam Waddell is back from injury, hopefully for good, and gives the Cowboys some leadership on the court. Plus, they did just beat one of the best teams in the conference. We’ll see if the win against New Mexico maintains momentum through their conference season.

The Cowgirl basketball team looks primed for another promising season in conference play.  They’ve already beat Colorado State, by 40 points, and New Mexico but have their first big conference test against Texas Christian on Wednesday night. They’re the best team in the conference right now and shouldn’t stray too far from the top of the conference standings throughout the season.

Brad Estes:

The men’s loss to CSU was not encouraging. It reminds me of a team that came up short and couldn’t finish games so many times last year. The buzzer beater New Mexico win is a good win, any win is a good win for the Cowboys. After a non-conference schedule that wouldn’t have scared a high school team, its hard to make predictions for the rest of the year. Losses to teams like South Dakota, North Florida and Green Bay make it difficult to believe that the team can win consistently.

San Diego State and BYU are both impressive teams and ranked in the top 10, and those games might be worth going to see just for that fact. It all depends on how many times the Cowboys decide to show up and play like they did against New Mexico. The losses are more telling than the wins so far, and until the wins start to add up a little more, I will wait to call them even a fifth place finish in the conference.

The Cowgirls are playing well and are coached well, so they will be at the top of the conference all year. Forty point victories over conference opponents are always encouraging. A win against TCU at home tomorrow night would also be big. As a young team, the only thing to be worried about would be consistency late in the year, but so far the Cowgirls have been just that.

Tom Hesse:

I usually peg the Cowgirls for a team that comes on late in the season but they’ve looked like world beaters in their first two conference games. They should have beaten CSU without question but I didn’t see an 83-43 dismantling in them and their ten-point win in Albuquerque showed a convincing road win that I wouldn’t have looked for in a team that is a little on the young side. The Cowgirls haven’t lost in nearly a month and if they take care of the home court this Wednesday, I think they have a real shot at one of those top three spots in the conference.

I was critical of the Cowboys early in the season and I’m still not sure to make of them. All I know is that Francisco Cruz’s intangibles made him a favorite of mine early in the season and his shot to bury the Lobos has made Cruz my favorite player to watch. If the Cowboys can play half as scrappy as they did against New Mexico for the rest of the season then They have a legitimate claim to the upper half of this conference.  That CSU loss still hurts and the MWC is incredibly tough this year but I’m very excited to see this team against UNLV, BYU and SDSU. There are a lot of things to like about this team and they’re still evolving. I’ll optimistically stick them at fifth in the conference with a shot at fourth.

Branding Iron

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As the ball careened off the rim once, and then again, hope faded to an imperceptible glimmer for Wyoming, and it appeared all but certain that the Cowboys and fourth-year head coach Heath Schroyer would once again come up heartbreakingly short in a crucial conference game against a top opponent.  

Sophomore wing Daylen Harrison grabbed a rebound and fired a desperation heave from the corner in the game’s dwindling moments, but Harrison’s shot clanged off the side of the rim and – for the briefest of moments – the ball hovered over the court like an errant balloon.

A forest of arms rose up under the hoop, and the Arena-Auditorium trembled under the tension of the baited breaths of 4,404 people as the clock ticked down to :01.   

With a sea of tumult thrashing about around him, Francisco Cruz grabbed the loose ball and – falling backwards – threw up one final prayer.

The buzzer sounded. The net rippled. A celebration of brown and gold erupted.

And a team’s entire season – and identity – may have undergone a complete transformation in the blink of an eye.

Cruz’s floater over the outstretched arm of New Mexico forward Alex Kirk proved to be the clincher in Wyoming’s 67-66 win over the Lobos on Saturday—ending a thriller of white-knuckle proportions which was anything but just another conference game for the Cowboys.

“It was a big win for our program and our team, and it was great for our kids,” Schroyer said in his press conference following the game.

Photo: DJ Bowman

“New Mexico is an unbelievable program with outstanding players and coaches. For us to get a win over a quality program like this is a big step in the right direction for our team.”

In a season which has been – in its young lifespan – tumultuous at best, and often thoroughly disappointing, Wyoming (8-8, 1-1 MWC) finally played to its potential and put together the signature win it has been searching for – and perhaps the very win Schroyer has been searching for throughout the past four seasons.

Hampered by nagging injuries to two of its top contributors – juniors Afam Muojeke and Adam Waddell – Wyoming had looked shaky in its first 15 contests of its 2010-11 campaign, as inconsistency and youth plagued the team in disappointing non-conference setbacks to Northern Colorado, North Florida, South Dakota, UC Irvine, and Wisconsin-Green Bay. 

The memories of a dismal 2009-10 season began to resurface after Wyoming blew a 13-point first half lead in its conference opener at rival Colorado State, as the Rams outscored the Cowboys 36-21 in the second half and ultimately put Wyoming away by a 73-60 margin.

Against New Mexico on Saturday, however, the Cowboys stood toe-to-toe with a formidable, 12 win team, conceding nothing to the defending conference champions.

Wyoming shot the ball well, hitting on 52.4 percent of its shots, and the Cowboys kept pace with the heavily favored Lobos thanks largely to two gutsy bench performances.

Harrison – who had struggled noticeably from the field in recent performances and did not see action against CSU – had a career afternoon, scoring 17 points on 6-7 shooting and pulling down four crucial rebounds.

“I thought Daylen was spectacular,” Schroyer said. “This was the Daylen we thought he could be. He was aggressive, and made the most of his opportunities today.”

Perhaps even more critical – and encouraging for the rest of the season – was the stellar performance from Waddell.

The 6’10 big man has been hobbled by an Achilles injury dating back to last season – missing a good portion of the nonconference season – but on Saturday he showed up in dominant fashion, even if his health still is not at 100 percent.

Waddell came through with 16 points, eight rebounds, and a pair of blocks in just 23 minutes of action – an impressive performance, which gives renewed optimism to Wyoming’s inside game if Waddell’s health continues to improve over the course of the season.

“We had no post that could guard Waddell,” New Mexico head coach Steve Alford said.

“Waddell did a heck of a job.”

“To have a healthy Adam Waddell, it really makes a difference,” Schroyer added.

Still, despite the efforts of Harrison, Waddell, and Desmar Jackson, who added 15 points of his own, it appeared as though it would be all for naught for the Cowboys when senior Lobo guard Dairese Gary, who led New Mexico with 24 points, sank two free throws to give the Lobos a 66-65 lead in the game’s waning moments.

A year ago in Laramie, UW went the distance with a leviathan New Mexico squad which finished the season 30-5, only to falter in the game’s closing moments and lose a 70-68 heartbreaker.

The Cowboys never recovered from the loss, struggling throughout the rest of the season and finishing with a 3-13 conference mark.

This year was different though, and only time will tell just how significant of a win it was.

Branding Iron

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With tradition and bragging rights on the line, Wyoming managed to pull off its first conference win.

The Cowboys pummeled Colorado State 44-0 in front of their home crowd at War Memorial Stadium; a rout that was Wyoming’s most lopsided victory in the 102-game history of the Border War.

Sophomore running back Alvester Alexander etched his place into Cowboy football lore, rushing for 147 yards and a school record five touchdowns.

“The coaches told me they were going to put it on my shoulders, so I needed to show them that I could carry that load,” Alexander said in the post-game press conference. “It was nice to have those big holes to run through. The offensive line practiced hard all week and then told me that they were going to block up front. They really did great.”

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Rivalry.

The venerated tradition of college football; a game between two celebrated foes, where emotions run high as the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, and where the significance of the matchup is transcended only by each team’s inexorable will to win.

All of the antecedent circumstances surrounding Saturday’s Border War matchup between Wyoming and Colorado State would seem to indicate a game of relative inconsequence.

The bowl aspirations of both teams fell along with the leaves weeks ago and have since been swept off in the November wind, leaving both teams with the barren realities of enormously disappointing seasons.

Wyoming (2-9, 0-7) is still winless in conference play this season, and the Cowboys were beaten handily by UNLV last Saturday–one week after falling 34-31 on the road to a previously winless New Mexico team.

The Rams (3-8, 2-5) were crushed 49-10 by BYU in their home finale last Saturday, and a once-proud Colorado State program, which appeared to be on the rise two years ago—after CSU won the 2008 New Mexico Bowl—now stares directly at the prospect of a second consecutive three-win season.

And yet, united by the frustrations of fruitless seasons and by the history and tradition of a rivalry more than one century deep, Wyoming and Colorado State will indubitably step onto the field of War Memorial Stadium on Saturday afternoon and play as intensely and as passionately as they have all season.

“It’s important because it’s our rivalry game and that makes it the most important game on our schedule,” Wyoming head coach Dave Christensen said in his Monday press conference. “It’ll always be the most important game on our schedule. It’s big to the people of the state of Wyoming, it’s big to everyone in our fanbase, our alumni and the kids in our program.”   

It’s perhaps of escalated importance to Colorado State, as the Rams still feel the sting of last season’s 17-16 defeat to Wyoming – a contest in which then-true freshman quarterback Austyn Carta-Samuels guided the Cowboys on a thrilling game-winning drive which culminated in a 33 yard Ian Watts field goal with 1:27 remaining.

Colorado State players, on the other hand, sat at home watching on television as Wyoming celebrated in jubilation, and the Rams could only have been thinking about what could have been if they would have stopped Carta-Samuels and spoiled the Cowboys’ bowl hopes. The Rams, doubtlessly, were thinking ahead to November for another shot at Wyoming.

Pete Thomas has turned some heads in the conference in his first season at the helm for the Rams, passing for 2,565 yards and 11 touchdowns, and although Thomas has been inconsistent at times—also throwing 12 interceptions—he is a formidable challenge for a Cowboy defense, which has been torched each of the previous three weeks.

On the other sideline, Carta-Samuels is still looking for a definitive performance in 2010, a season after winning MWC Freshman of the Year honors.

It isn’t that Carta-Samuels has struggled—he’s completed 59.1% of his passes—but the Cowboy offense has been stagnant for most of the season, and while Carta-Samuels hasn’t surpassed the 200 yard passing mark since week one, it’s in rivalry games where great players often rise to the occasion and etch their legacies definitively into the histories of a program. 

There’s no shortage of reasons to believe that players all over the field – wearing brown and gold and green and gold – will be up to the occasion on Saturday. 

It’s the final time outstanding senior contributors Chris Prosinski (366 career tackles, fourth all-time in Cowboy history), David Leonard (147), and Marcell Gipson will take the field as Cowboys.

It’s the opportunity to hoist the Bronze Boot in triumph and hold bragging rights over a fierce rival. 

It’s the Border War, and it’s still about as good as it gets for college football in November. 

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The Cowboy and Cowgirl basketball teams started their seasons on positive notes notching home wins over the weekend.

The Cowgirls opened their season on Friday against the University of Denver Pioneers.  The game was a hard fought, defensive battle that the Cowgirls eventually won 64-58.

“That’s about as tough of an opener as you want to begin the year,” Cowgirl head coach Joe Legerski told Wyoming Athletics. 

“I thought the game was played extremely well. We talked at halftime that the first four minutes out of the break were very important. We came out with great energy and made a push from a four point to an 11 point lead. It got us into a comfort zone even though Denver made a couple of runs at us, and it really dictates how you want to play defense and what you want to do offensively.”

The stellar play of Cheyenne native Hilary Carlson willed the Cowgirls to victory.  Carlson posted a double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds. Carlson was helped by senior guard Aubrey Vandiver, who added 19 points, eight rebounds and four assists.

Sophomore forward Ashley Sickles came off the bench to add seven points of her own in 13 quality minutes. 

UW was outshot by the Pioneers, but their aggressive play ultimately won them the game, shooting 36 free throws to Denver’s 13.

The Cowboys dominated their season opener, beating the Division III Kean University Cougars 92-58 Saturday.

The Cowboys started the game slowly, going down 12-6 early in the game, but the Pokes went on a 21-2 run and never looked back. 

The Cowboys were led by senior forward Djibril Thiam, who scored a team-high 18 points while grabbing six rebounds. Junior forward Afam Muojeke played in his first game since a Jan. 20 knee injury forced him to miss the remainder of last season. Muojeke played well, scoring 14 points in just 11 minutes of action.

Making the best of his first career start, sophomore forward Amath M’Baye tied a career-high with 14 points. Sophomore guard Desmar Jackson also contributed to the dominating win, scoring 12 points and grabbing eight boards. 

The Cowboys defense limited the Cougars, allowing Kean to shoot only 31 percent from the field while the Cowboys shot 57 percent. 

The Cowboys defense forced Kean to commit 18 turnovers and limited their own turnovers to nine.

Email: Tyler Reese 

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