Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming senior guard Brandon Ewing brings the ball up the court with Prairie View A&M's Michael Griffin defending.
By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org
The Cowboys have now seen the gamut of victory, so to speak, two games into the season.
They saw what it was like to basically thump a team when they beat Cal State Bakersfield by 26 points in the season opener last week. On Wednesday, they saw what it takes to win a close game, despite struggles, holding off a pesky Prairie View A&M team, 80-75 in the Arena-Auditorium.
If this was the Cowboys second test of the young season, they won with a slightly passing grade.
Wyoming senior forward Tyson Johnson said it was a good thing to have this type of game.
“This is a test for us to see how tough we are,” Johnson said. “Prairie was real good tonight, but we just have to go to practice tomorrow and work harder because we made a lot of mistakes, a lot of turnovers.”
If Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer had his druthers, he would like a more convincing victory. At the very least, he would not want the outcome to be undecided with just a couple possessions remaining.
With that said, he too will take this win.
“Anytime you have a young team and win, it is a good win,” Schroyer said.
Despite their mistakes, Schroyer said the Cowboys did what they had to do at crunch time to win the game. That again is a good thing.
“We had to execute out of timeouts and we executed when we needed to,” Schroyer said. “We had defensive stops when we needed them and we hit our free throws down the stretch.”
The Cowboys, however, did have their share of problems, mainly turning the ball over (17 turnovers) and weak on defense at times.
“I think we just let the pressure get to us a little bit. We let them make a lot of shots,” Johnson said. “”We really didn’t defend well. I knew we were going to close it out because we got three seniors out there who worked hard through the whole game.”
The Panthers had 22 more shots from the field than the Cowboys, although Wyoming held a 39-36 rebounding edge.
“I didn’t think we played particularly well defensively,” Schroyer said. “We held them to 39 percent shooting from the field, which is what we want, but we gave them way too many opportunities. We had a hard time defending the dribble.”
Leading just 76-75 with just over a minute to play, the Cowboys got a pair of free throws by Johnson and his put-back off of a Ewing miss to clinch the win.
“It was just Brandon trying to create. He’s our best player and he went to the basket. The ball was tipped, so I just went and got it,” said Johnson, who scored 20 points, second on the team to redshirt freshman Afam Muojeke’s 23 points.
Ewing had another solid game with 14 points, eight assists and five rebounds. At times, though, his frustration showed outwardly in the Cowboys’ play.
“The frustration wasn’t at my team directly, it was more like,’ I know we’re a better team than that,’” Ewing said. “Even though we were winning at halftime -- it is always good to have a lead -- but we are better team that that. Now we have to go back to the lab, practices have to get better. Even though we are 2-0, we have to get better, day-by-day.”
Darnell Hugee led Prairie View A&M with 19 points, followed by Derek Johnson with 13, Christopher Jones and Tim Meadows with 12 each and Dorian McDaniel with 10.“I thought our guys played very well,” Prairie View A&M coach Byron Rimm II. “We had a few bad bounces here and there, but Wyoming is a very good basketball team. We came out and competed, though.”
Ewing said that sometimes you can’t win by 30 points every game. You have to learn how to win some battles.
“That’s when you know you are a pretty good team,” Ewing said. “Whether you win close games at home or close ones on the road, you have to be a decent team to squeak out a close one. This team, even though they are 1-4, they are battle-tested. They’ve been at UCLA, where we are going in the future; they’ve been to Missouri, so they have been on the road. I knew they weren’t going to come in here scared.”
The Cowboys will return to action Saturday at 6 p.m. when they host Johnson & Wales.
---
COWBOYS 80, PANTHERS 75
Prairie View A&M 75 (1-4)
## Player FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA TP
33 HUGEE,Darnell f 7-13 0-1 5-7 19
44 McDANIEL,Dorian f 4-15 0-5 2-2 2 10
05 JOHNSON,Derek g 3-7 1-3 6-7 13
11 JONES,Christopher g 4-7 1-2 3-4 12
41 MEADOWS,Tim g 4-11 2-4 2-2 12
00 SHIVERS,Jacoie 0-0 0-0 0-0 0
03 RICHMAN,Alex 0-1 0-1 0-0 0
10 GRIFFIN,Michael 2-5 1-3 0-0 5
21 KHALFAN,Ahmed 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 2
23 BELL,Donald 1-6 0-1 0-0 0 2
32 GARRISON,Tarrence 0-1 0-0 0-0
Totals 26-68 5-20 18-22 75
Wyoming Cowboys 80 (2-0)
## Player FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA TP
11 MUOJEKE, Afam f 7-13 1-3 8-11 23
21 JOHNSON, Tyson f 4-8 0-0 12-13 20
13 LINSKENS, Mikhail c 1-1 0-0 0-0 2
00 OGIRRI, Sean g 4-10 2-7 2-2 12
23 EWING, Brandon g 3-8 1-4 7-10 14
15 WADDELL, Adam 1-1 0-0 1-4 3
32 DIAKITE, Mahamoud 2-5 0-0 2-3 6
51 DAVIS, A.J. 0-2 0-1 0-0 0 0
Totals 22-48 4-15 32-43 80
Prairie View A&M 31 44 75
Wyoming Cowboys 34 46 80
Officials: Eric Curry, Larry Spaulding and Lonnie Dixon. Technical fouls: Prairie View A&M-HUGEE,Darnell. Wyoming Cowboys-None. Attendance: 6896
No comments:
Post a Comment