Pirates thump Cowboys

UW-Hampton box

by Bobby Abplanalp
Wyoming Sports.org

The Wyoming Cowboys continue to struggle, dropping their third straight game to the previously winless Hampton Pirates 78-67 Saturday night in the World Vision Basketball Challenge at the Arena-Auditorium ,

Wyoming, 2-4, is now out of tournament championship contention, while Hampton, 1-5, can still play for as high as second place.

The Cowboys had a player’s only meeting after their two-point loss to Monmouth on Friday night, but it appears those problems haven't gone away, with their leading scorer, Afam Muojeke, still injured. He played just 14 minutes Saturday and had two points.

“I just made a decision to go zone defensively, so I could hide him,” UW head coach Heath Schroyer said about Muojeke. “I knew he couldn’t press or play man-to-man, so we hid him in the zone so we could have him offensively to make shots. When your leading scorer is out and the rest of us are very young, it makes it very tough.”

One of those problems is shooting, as the Pokes shot an abysmal 34 percent from the field and hit just 1 of 21 3-point attempts. Wyoming has hit just 3 of 42 3-pointers in the last three games.

“I thought we had some really good wide open looks and we just didn’t knock them down,” Schroyer said. “It gets into a snowball effect. We don’t make shots continuously and it puts pressure on us defensively and we don’t guard as hard as we need to guard and it just snowballs.”

“I think everyone on the team has confidence to knock it down, it’s just a matter of getting that confidence back,” Muojeke said. “We’re in a slump, we’re young, and we just got a lot of growing up to do.”

Hampton opened up the game on an 18-5 run before Djibril Thiam and A.J. Davis rallied the Cowboys back to cut the lead to eight at halftime.

Wyoming opened the second half on a 12-2 run to take their first lead of the game at 38-36, but Hampton answered with a 9-2 run taking a 45-40 lead and they would never trail again.

The Pokes could not get any closer than four points because Hampton shooting guard Vincent Simpson had an answer every time from 3-point land to thwart any Wyoming comeback, including a 3-pointer at the three-minute mark to increase their lead to 71-64, sealing the game.

Wyoming has now lost three games in a four-day span.

“It’s really disappointing because that’s not what we planned on doing,” Thiam said of the losing streak. “Things happen and we just got to bounce back from it. We got to stay mentally focused for what we got to do and that is play harder.”

Simpson finished with 34 points on 10 of 17 shooting and 6 of 10 from downtown, while converting 8 of 10 from the free-throw line.

“He’s our guy right now,” Hampton head coach Edward Joyner Jr. said about Simpson. “He’s been struggling as of late and now it finally paid off for us. He was very huge and it got us our first win.”

Thiam and Davis led the Pokes, recording 20 and 18 points, while Adam Waddell threw in 14.

Hampton has lost some close games this season, but has lost something much more important, their team-captain and leader Theo Smalling was shot last month on his 22nd birthday and died the following night in the hospital.

“Three weeks ago we were at our star center and captain’s funeral, so that’s what it’s been like,” Joyner Jr. said. “I’m happy for the guys. They stuck together, and they played together. We lost our first few games, but that was also on me for preparation because we couldn’t practice for a while, but they stuck together and stayed in it and they believed and they finally got the first win on their label.”

Wyoming will try to end their three-game losing skid against the Pepperdine Waves Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., while Hampton takes on Monmouth at 12 p.m., in the Arena-Auditorium.