Cowboys struggle at times, but get the job done for eighth win of the season

Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming guard Brandon Ewing has the ball stripped from him against Western State.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

When does a coach see progress in his program? Probably when he isn’t particularly happy, yet wins by 27 points.

Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer has had to basically build from the bottom up in his short time at Wyoming, and now has the Cowboys at 8-1 on the season.

While there have been times the Cowboys haven’t been real sharp -- including Tuesday’s 100-73 win over Western State -- some of the Wyoming wins this year could have easily been losses in the past.

It’s a one step at a time for Schroyer, but steps in the right direction.

“We didn’t play particularly well tonight, but it’s good to not play your best and still win by 27,” Schroyer said. ““We didn’t play with the sense of urgency I would have liked to seen, but we made enough plays to win."

Western State, a Division II program out of the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, scored 14 straight points on Wyoming early after the Cowboys jumped out to an 11-2 lead.

The Cowboys battled back and led by nine at halftime and opened up a 20-point lead at the midpoint of the second half.

“Tyson (Johnson) and Sean (Ogirri) brought everybody together and said that we needed to pick it up a little bit, play our style of basketball,” Wyoming senior guard Brandon Ewing said. “We needed to get stops and get on the run … we needed to find Sean for open 3s, find Tyson on the post, I needed to stay aggressive. We got out of our chemistry a little bit and that is why they made a little run. But once we got going a little bit, there was nothing they could do with us.”

It was still a struggle at times, though, for a Wyoming team that didn’t defend the perimeter very well and still turned the ball over too much for Schroyer’s liking.

Western State hit 12 3-pointers in the game, but had to take 38 attempts, basically half of its overall totals from the field. Wyoming also 14 turnovers and gave up 14 offensive rebounds, although several were long rebounds off of missed 3-pointers. Western State still had 10 more field goal attempts in the game than Wyoming (77-67).

The Cowboys have been criticized for not having the toughest non-conference schedule this year, but Schroyer said that when you go back over this program over an extended period of time, they just need to win games.

“We’re one possession at Boise State from being 9-0,” he said. “We played a team (and won) at Northern Iowa on a neutral floor that is going to be postseason. They haven’t had anything less than 18 wins in the last five years. You look at Texas State and they went to Texas and played them to an eight-point game. I want to keep taking it one-day-at-a-time and try to keep getting better.”

Schroyer added that as the Cowboys keep getting betterby playing with a purpose offensively and understanding and truly valuing defense, he said this team can be pretty good.

“I’ve always said that this is year two of the process,” he said. “I think this team is pretty good. Are we great? No, we’re not. Do we have the potential to be pretty good? I think we do.”

Ewing said it is all about staying focused.

“We’re 8-1 now and now we have to focus on the next one,” he said. “We can’t dwell on this one. At the end of the day, Wyoming still won.”