Cowgirls up, Cowboys down
by George Kay
This scenario isn’t just a possibility anymore -- it has happened.
The University of Wyoming Cowgirls basketball team is unbeaten in conference play and has won 16 of 17 games so far this season, going into tonight’s game in Laramie against UNLV.
On the other hand, the UW Cowboys are mired in the basement of the Mountain West Conference, following a 70-43 defeat at the hands of the San Diego State Aztecs last Saturday in California.
The Pokes lost by 27 points in the final score, but the game wasn’t even that close. Wyoming was simply horrible throughout the first half, going scoreless for the first 8-1/2 minutes.
The Cowboys managed to score only 13 points in the first half. They did better in the second half, but the outcome was no longer in doubt and both teams seemed disinterested. Tonight, the Pokes will attempt to turn things around when they play UNLV in Las Vegas.
The Cowgirls are picking up this season right where they left off last spring when a late-season surge carried them to the championship of the WNIT. That UW team will be honored as the Wyoming Sports Hall of Fame Athlete of the Year in June in Casper.
This season, the roster of players for Coach Joe Legerski is basically the same as last time around. The Cowgirls are a solid group that plays unselfishly and with a physical attitude that sets them apart when a game is on the line.
And the public has bought into the program. The Cowgirls are drawing around 5,000 fans a game at the Arena-Auditorium in Laramie, and that is about equal to the turnout for Cowboy home games.
The Pokes drew a shade over 5,000 to last week’s home game against Air Force. That is far below what the men’s team normally would attract in previous years. So, the public has apparently decided that the Cowgirls shouldn’t be relegated to second-class status.
If the current trend continues, one would expect the women’s home games would be more popular than the men’s games.
So what can be done to revive the Wyoming men’s team? That is the question that Coach Heath Schroyer asked midway through his first season as the UW head coach. No one really expected this Cowboy team to dominate the conference, but we didn’t figure to be at the bottom of the league either.
When the Pokes were beaten by Montana State in the Wyoming Shootout last month in Casper, it gave us a glimpse of reality. This UW team does have some obvious liabilities.
And when the Cowboys were humiliated by San Diego State on Saturday night, those faults were exposed for all to see. Coach Schroyer tried to explain the lopsided loss by calling San Diego State "maybe the best team in the conference." Let's hope not because this is the team that lost at home to Northern Colorado from Greeley earlier in the month.
No, I doubt that San Diego State is going to frighten any of the top college teams in the land, and that makes the Wyoming loss on Saturday even more frightening.
In truth, I don’t think the Mountain West Conference deserves to be ranked among the nation’s best. It appeared as if BYU was the class of the league until the Cougars were drubbed by UNLV recently and by a mere 29 points.
The MWC men’s basketball race is still very much up for grabs, but at this point, Wyoming doesn’t deserve to be considered in the equation.
And whatever happened to Eric Platt. The 6-5, sophomore from Casper has been seeing decreasing playing time during the current Cowboy slide. One wonders why since Platte has shown an ability to shoot the ball from outside with a reasonable degree of accuracy.
Eric had been hampered with a nagging leg injury, but he has shown much improvement defensively, and his outside shooting ability has never been questioned. However, in recent games, his playing time has diminished to an extent that he doesn’t seem comfortable or confident in attempting the perimeter shot.
The ultimate fate of this Wyoming team seems to rest on the backcourt tandem of Brandon Ewing and Brad Jones, who have been anointed as the best guard line in the conference. In recent games, Ewing and Jones have not lived up to that level.
You then have to wonder if Schroyer's "one-in and four-out" offensive scheme is going to produce. There is a whole lot of basketball yet to be played, but at this point in the season, our Cowboys are not performing the way we had hoped.