Ogirri earns MWC honors

Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming senior Sean Ogirri was named the Mountain West Conference Player of the Week.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

There’s no doubt, Wyoming senior Sean Ogirri is finding his stroke.

Ogirri connected on 14 of 25 3-pointers last week, which was good enough to earn him Mountain West Conference Men’s Basketball Player of the Week honors.

Ogirri averaged 25.5 points per game last week while helping Wyoming to wins over Western State (100-73) and Sacramento State (93-70). With those wins, the Cowboys are 9-1 and off to their best start since the 1990-91 season.

For the week, Ogirri shot 58.6 percent (17-of-29) from the field and did not commit a turnover in either game.

Ogirri opened the week by scoring a career-high 26 points against Western State. He had an especially hot second half, scoring 23 points. He also tallied two rebounds, two assists and a steal against the Mountaineers.

Against Sacramento State, Ogirri scored 25 points, while also collecting two assists, one rebound, one block and one steal.

After the Western State game, Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer said this is just a glimpse of what Ogirri can go offensively.

“Sean is such a great teammate that sometimes he defers a little too much to his teammates than being aggressive,” Schroyer said. “For us to do what we are going to do in conference to be competitive, Sean Ogirri is going to have to be aggressive and I thought in the second half, he was.”

For the season, Ogirri is averaging 15.6 points a game. He has connected on 38 of 89 3-pointers (42.7 percent). His 38 3-pointers and 3.8 treys per game are tops on the league.

The way Wyoming senior guard Brandon Ewing sees it, Ogirri is just getting started offensively for the Cowboys.

“He's still got way more than 25 points,” Ewing said. “He can get scary out there.”

Just how much more?

“I think I can get 50," said Ogirri with a laugh.

Ewing agreed: “He can definitely can get 50, but we have a lot of scorers, so he has to settle for 25 sometimes.”

Ogirri, who sat out last season after transferring from Wichita State, has tied for the second-best single-game performance in both Wyoming and Arena-Auditorium history with those seven 3-pointers in each game.