Cowboys turn to defense to beat Frogs

Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming coach Heath Schroyer congratulates Afam Muojeke during a substitution on Saturday against TCU.

Wyoming-TCU stats

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

Was it a good defensive game or a poor offensive game? Take you pick.

The Wyoming Cowboys prefer to go with the first. Who is to argue, as the Cowboys showed more improvement on the defensive end in stopping TCU 61-56 on Saturday in the Arena-Auditorium.

“This was the first time all year that we won a grind-it-out defensive battle,” Wyoming coach Heath Schroyer said. “I think we have gotten better defensively, and that was evident tonight. We wouldn’t have won it without it (defense).”

In the last three games, the Cowboys have given up an average of 65.0 points a game, compared to an average of 78 in the first nine conference contests.

“In this last bye week, the light bulb started to go on with our guys,” Schroyer said. "As a staff, we have talked about that all week. I thought at San Diego State, defensively, we played well and I thought in these last two games we played well.”

For the Cowboys to make a little run at this point of the season, Schroyer said they have to continue improve on defense.

“In this league in late February, you are going to have to win games like this,” he added. “Everyone knows everyone’s tendencies; it’s hard to get easy baskets and that was evident tonight.”

Other than one spurt in the first half and another in the second half, the Cowboys struggled to get much going offensively from the field and from the free-throw line.

The two teams scored 157 points in overtime in Fort Worth earlier in the season. Wyoming senior guard Brandon Ewing didn’t anticipate a low-scoring game on Saturday.

But he’ll take the win, regardless.

“At this time of the year, these are the games that we have to win,” Ewing said. “We have to win the high-scoring games and we also have to win the close games, the grind-it-out games.”

In that first game, TCU senior forward Kevin Langford went off for a career-high 36 points. To say the least, Langford was on the Cowboys’ minds this time around.

Senior Tyson Johnson said they tried a little different strategy in defending Langford.

“At TCU, we tried to front him,” Johnson said. “Today, we tried to bring a weak-side guard or whoever was there, to double team him on the floor. At TCU, we tried to get in front and we got caught a couple of times and that is why he got some easy layups. Today, we played behind him and tried to play him strong.”

Langford finished with just 12 points on 3 of 9 shooting.

Schroyer said that freshman Adam Waddell and sophomore Djibril Thiam did a bulk of the defense on the Horned Frogs’ go-to scorer.

“Adam’s numbers weren’t great, but I thought he and Djibril did a great job on Langford,” Schroyer said. “I can only remember two times when Langford had a good angle to the basket.”

The Cowboys, 16-10, 5-7 in the Mountain West, led by as much as 11 midway through the second half, only to see the Horned Frogs, 14-13, 5-8, close the gap to two with a minute remaining.

Thiam and Ewing both hit 1 of 2 free throws for Wyoming, followed by TCU's Edvinas Ruzgas hitting 1-of-2 from the line with 7.6 seconds left. Still a one-possession game, Johnson was left wide open on the full court press for a dunk to close the scoring.

Ewing finished with 16 points for Wyoming, which was 21-of-49 from the field and only 2-of-18 from beyond the 3-point line. Wyoming also struggled on the free-throw line (17-of-32).

“It was like there was a lid on the rim,” Ewing said. “I know Sean (Ogirri) had a couple of 3s that went in and out; all of us had a couple of shots that felt good, but just didn’t go in. It was just one of the days. Our defense had to win it today.”

Zvonko Buljan led the Horned Frogs with 14 points, as TCU was 17-of-52 from the field and hit just 5 of 24 3-pointers.

“I thought we had good defense on the floor, but you can’t shoot 30 percent and win games,” TCU coach Jim Christian said. “You have to make shots on the road. We gave ourselves a shot, but we just didn’t execute.”

The Cowboys return to the road next week at Colorado State on Wednesday and at Air Force on Saturday.