Cowboy offense stuck in reverse

Richard Anderson photo
Wyoming senior Brandon Ewing goes up for a layup Tuesday against Northeastern.

Cowboys-Huskies stats

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

The game plan was simple: Just play an up-tempo game and run your opponent off the court.

Not everything goes as planned and the Wyoming Cowboys found out the hard way Tuesday in the first round of the College Basketball Invitational against Northeastern.

The Huskies, who play a more deliberate game, slowed the Cowboys down to almost a crawl at times and held off Wyoming 64-62 to move into the quarterfinals next Monday against UTEP.

“We knew going in that we couldn’t score in the 70s or 80s,” Northeastern coach Bill Coen said. “The University of Wyoming is very comfortable at playing at that pace. We knew we couldn’t get going up and down and get into a running game with them. We tried to control the tempo and that was effective.”

Northeastern, which confused Wyoming with various defenses, went into the game giving up an average of 62.4 points a game. Giving up 62 to the Cowboys proved to be just enough.

“They like the game low scoring like that; we like the game up in the 80s and the 90s,” Wyoming senior guard Brandon Ewing said. “We really couldn’t get in a rhythm.”

Wyoming coach Heath Schroyer said his team was out of rhythm all night.

“I give Northeastern a lot of credit for that,” Schroyer said. “Their switching defenses kept us off balance. Offensively, they knocked down big shots when they needed to.”

The Cowboys were especially off kilter early, as Northeastern, build early leads of 14-7 , 21-8 and 27-14.

“We did what we did most of the year by coming out with energy, forcing them to one and done, boxing out and getting rebounds,” Northeastern guard Allen Chaisson said.

Once the Cowboys didn’t have a couple of early shots go down, Schroyer said they pressed.

“Give them a lot of credit,“ Schroyer said. “When Tyson (Johnson) and Sean (Ogirri), your two seniors that score a lot, get just seven points, they did a nice job."

Wyoming did recover and actually led on two occasions in the second half, but could never get over the hump.

“We missed a lot of easy shots,” said Ewing, who led all scorers with 22 points. “We weren’t executing on our offense and defensive end. They hit a lot of tough shots and got their confidence.”

The nearly 7,000-feet difference in altitude between Boston and Laramie seemingly was built for the Cowboys’ advantage.

“I would say that people, if they hit their shots and get their confidence going, if they are winning the game, the altitude will never faze them,” Ewing said. “ But if they are losing the game, they’ll get tired.”

Instead, the lengthy Huskies gave the Cowboys fits all game. No one struggled more for Wyoming than Ogirri, who was scoreless for the only time in his brief UW career, missing all three of his shots. Ogirri went into the game averaging 14.8 points and was the Wyoming and Mountain West Conference single-season leader in 3-point shooting.

“He’s a real good catch and shoot shooter from the outside, so we just tried to get up in his face and not let him get the quick look right away,” Northeastern guard Matt Janning said. “Coach did a good job of switching defenses the whole game. We went triangle and two and put one guy out. He was more than happy to sit in the corner. I think we took him out of the game.”

Coen called Ogirri is one of the best shooters that he is ever seen. It was the Huskies job to keep Ogirri out of his comfort zone.

“We were very concerned. He was very capable of going for big numbers,“ Coen said. “Every shot he took was contested. We have some length and we were hoping that would bother him a little bit.”

The Cowboys certainly missed Ogirri’s instant offense.

“It’s always hard to play when Sean’s not out there and in his groove,” said Wyoming freshman Afam Muojeke, who added 16 points “He got in early foul trouble, and he was never really able to get into it.”

In the end, the Cowboys could never get over their offensive quagmire.

“This was our first postseason game in six years and we were almost in slow motion at times,” Schroyer said. “Obviously, it is a step we will have to take and absorb."