The University of Wyoming men’s basketball team lost to the Air Force Academy Falcons 55-53 Tuesday night in the Arena Auditorium.
The contest came down to a final three-point shot from Cowboys’ senior guard Nathan Sobey with three seconds remaining, but the attempt misfired and the Falcons came away with a win.
“I did expect another close game tonight because that has been the way we’ve played all season. Whether it be in November or February, we have gone toe-to-toe with every opponent,” UW head coach Larry Shyatt said. “Both halves tonight were very similar. I thought we fought back hard. I thought our energy may be zapped a little bit because we were having such an awful shooting night, but you know our defensive energy was pretty good. We held them to 55 points.”
The Pokes came into the second half trailing Air Force by four, 23-27, but quickly earned the upper hand on a 7-2 run led by Sobey, who recorded all seven points. The streak brought the Pokes the lead, 32-29.
After that, the two teams exchanged the advantage nine times until Air Force notched a few timely free throws to take a 54-50 lead with 20 seconds to play.
Then, sophomore guard Josh Adams knocked down a three to bring the Pokes to within one, 54-53, before the Falcons hit yet another free throw on the other end to take a two-point lead with 11 seconds left.
The Cowboys had one opportunity to pull out a win in the form of Sobey’s aforementioned three from the right side of the arc, but it was not meant to be.
Sobey led the Pokes with 18 points and shot 67 percent (8-of-12) from the field.
Sophomore guard Tre’ Coggins paced the Falcons with 20 points, leading all scorers in the matchup.
Tuesday’s contest started out slow, with neither team scoring well past the first two minutes of regulation.
Wyoming eventually managed its way to a four-point lead after eight minutes, but this was soon countered by a 10-1 scoring spurt from Air Force that put the Cowboys in their largest deficit of the half, down 18-12.
The Cowboys found a way to bring things back to within one before the first half was over, but a late three from the Falcons left the Pokes down four going into the locker room, 27-23.
Wyoming shot 40 percent (20-of-50) from the field and a mere 20 percent (4-of-20) from downtown.
“We just can’t come up that dry shooting,” Shyatt said. “Our three guards, Adams, Grabau and Washington, just picked a night where they went 3 of 22 from the field. We just don’t have that margin of error to shoot that poorly and come out with a win. We almost won it. We had some pretty good execution to get a three for Josh [Adams] with 13 seconds to go. Then we were looking for a similar play on the other side of the court with about three second to go, but it didn’t happen. It was disappointing not to win, but not disappointing and not surprising that we took the game right down to the wire with a chance to win it.”
The Cowboys return to action this weekend, taking on Boise State this Saturday at 4 p.m. in the Arena Auditorium.
