Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming freshman A.J. Davis is fouled hard by Texas State's Dylan Moseley as the Cowboys Mahamoud Diakite looks on. Moseley was whistled for an intentional foul on the play.
Wyoming-Texas State boxscore
By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org
The Wyoming Cowboys traded 3-pointers for free throws against Texas State on Wednesday night.
The end the result was a one point game -- a single free throw or the difference between a 3-pointer and a 2-point field goal in the 97-96 Wyoming victory at the Arena-Auditorium.
The game was a free-throw and 3-point shooting contest with each team in contrast of each other. Wyoming hit 44 of 56 free throws, to 10-of-19 for Texas State, while the Bobcats connected of 16 of 33 3-point field goals to just 3-of-15 for the Cowboys.
“It was crazy,” Wyoming senior guard Brandon Ewing said. “They are a team that likes to get out and run. They don’t look at the score, they just play and that’s what we do. Pound-for-pound, we matched up well with each other. It came down to the wire, 97-96.”
It almost came down to overtime, as Wyoming (4-0) led 97-93 lead with 4.5 seconds remaining, only to see Texas State sharp-shooter Brent Benson hit a 3-pointer, with a foul. Benson, however, missed the free throw. The game was far from over even when Wyoming’s Adam Waddell grabbed the rebound and was fouled. He missed both free throws, but the ball was tipped back to him and he got his own rebound as the Cowboys pulled out the win.
Although overtime often favors the home team, Ewing said he didn’t want to take any chances.
“The first person I looked at was Tyson Johnson,” Ewing said. “I’m like, ‘I don’t want to go to overtime with them because their player (Benson) was just heating up, hitting nine 3s.’ It would have gotten scary out there.”
It certainly wasn’t a game for the defense, as there were 10 lead changes and a lot of points.
Benson scored a game-high 32 points as he hit 9 of 12 3-pointers. Brandon Bush scored 22 points for Texas State, with Cameron Johnson adding 11.Ewing scored 27 points to lead Wyoming, followed by senior Tyson Johnson with 22 and the freshmen Waddell and Afam Muojeke with 16 points each.
Schroyer said with the 56 free-throw attempts, the Cowboys did what he wanted them to do -- go straight to the basket.“Our goal is a minimum of 40 attempts,” Schroyer said. “We want to throw it into the post and play in straight lines. With a team like that, you have to play north-south and not east-west. We did enough to win the game.”
Along with the 193 points combined, there were 54 fouls and 27 turnovers between the teams. The 44 free throws made are a Wyoming A-A record.
“Apparently it was bad defense for both teams, that’s what was happening,” Texas State coach Doug Davalos said. “Ours was putting them on the line too much and I give credit to them, they played better defense than we did.”
Trailing 50-46 at halftime, the Cowboys battled back from a 10-point deficit in the second half by using a 15-4 run for its first lead (68-66) since they led 26-20 a the 9:22 mark of the first half.
“I’m glad the guys were able to find a way to win,” Schroyer said. “We didn’t play our best at times, but they are a good team. You have to credit Texas State, they just kept coming at us.”
The Cowboys will return to action Saturday at 4 p.m. when they host Denver.
No comments:
Post a Comment