Trials and tribulations: Cowboys struggle but stop Mines in exhibition

Richard Anderson photos
Wyoming redshirt forward Afam Muojeke looks to make a move on a Colorado School of Mines player Saturday. At left, UW head coach Heath Schroyer looks to relax Muojeke early in the exhibition.


By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer took redshirt freshman Afam Muojeke aside during an early media time out for a little one-on-one chat.

Schroyer told Muojeke to just relax.

“I said, ‘You know, you’re trying hard and just let it come to you.' He was just a ball of energy,” said Schroyer after the Cowboys’ 72-60 exhibition win over Colorado School of Mines Saturday at the Arena-Auditorium.

The new Cowboys, fresh off of an impressive closed scrimmage in Seattle against Washington, struggled at times, especially early, against the Division II Orediggers.

A classic case of opening jitters, evidently.

“I sensed that they were excited, but they had a lot of nervous energy,” Schroyer said. “They looked like a lot of young pups running around. A lot of them had the old cotton mouth and were out of breath the first couple of minutes. In the first half, I thought we settled down and had a pretty good lead going into halftime. Then we hit a lull and didn’t execute.”

The Cowboys trailed by as much as five in the first half before leading by 17 at halftime. Mines slowly chipped away and trailed by only five points with three minutes to play, before Wyoming closed strong in the waning minutes.

Muojeke said he did feel the jitters at first.

“The seniors took me through it, to finish the game up,” Muojeke said.

The lanky forward finished with 11 points and 10 rebounds, with much of his success coming in the second half. He said it basically took him the first half to settle down.

“It felt great to be home and come out and play hard,” Muojeke. “It was a good feeling.”

There were glimpses of potential and youth and inexperience for many of the younger Cowboys. Redshirt freshman post Adam Waddell had 12 points and four rebounds, but fouled out in the second half. Mahamoud Diakite had a couple of big offensive rebounds off of missed free throws, grabbing five boards in 20 minutes. He, too, fouled out. Freshman guard A.J. Davis showed hustle in his 10 minutes as well.

“Like I have said about Afam, A.J. and Adam and even (Djabril Thiam), there are going to be a lot of nights when we go, ‘Wow! Afam Muojeke is a freshman?’ Then you are going to look and go, Afam is a freshman.’ They are going to have really good games and they are going to have tough games -- ups and downs. All four of those guys. (Associate head coach) Fred Langely, who sits beside me every night, said they are going to have to fight through it; this is why we play an exhibition. That’s what we did.”

Senior guard Brandon Ewing, always the stabilizer, said they need to be patient and just improve as they go.

“All we have to do is keep getting better in practice day-by-day and each game,” Ewing said. “You can’t win a championship in an exhibition game or the first game of the year. We have a lot of young guys. Even though Sean (Ogirri) is a senior, this is really his first year with us and we just have to keep getting better day by day.”

Ewing finished with a team high 19 points, with Ogirri adding 15, including 12 in the second half. Kyle Pape led the Orediggers with 21 points, followed by Dale Minschwaner with 12.

“It was an exhibition. We saw a lot and obviously it was a great experience for our guys to play with the lights on,” Schroyer said. “As a coach, the frustrating part is that we went to Washington for a scrimmage and played really, really well. I don’t think we played very well tonight. I think we made a lot of mental errors … missed 14 free throws, had 16 turnovers and only had 11 assists.”

The Cowboys will open the regular season Friday when they host Cal State Bakersfield.

“On a positive note, I thought it was really good for us to get this one under our belt and have Afam, Adam and Sean get their first game under the lights, playing in the A-A,” Schroyer said. “We’ll take a look a the film, break it down and get ready to go for Friday.”