The Cowboys were held scoreless for the first eight minutes of the game with Air Force opened the game shooting 9-13 from the field on their way to a 83-68 victory at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
The Falcons scored 25 straight before the Pokes scored their first basket.
Guard Justin James scored 20 points to lead the Cowboys, his 25th game in double figures this season. Forward Hayden Dalton pitched in 15 points and 12 rebounds for his 11th double-double of the season.
“Obviously it’s just like, wow, we’re down 23-0,” James said. “I mean credit to them. They came out with a lot of fire. They came out with more passion than we did and they just came out and dominated.”
Edwards gave a lot of praise to the Falcons in the press conference after the game.
“Obviously, first, just all the credit to Air Force,” head coach Allen Edwards said. “I thought they came out with some tremendous excitement for the tournament, shot the ball really, really well in the first half. And we were forced into a situation of playing catch up for pretty much the whole game. I couldn’t say we were horrible on defense, I thought they made some tough shots, as well.”
Air Force did most of their damage from the free throw line, going 29-34 (85 percent), including 19-22 in the second half. The Cowboys shot 40 percent from the field while the Falcons shot 41 percent, but the Pokes had 20 turnovers and were outrebounded 36-34.
The Pokes had 10 three pointers on the night, their ninth straight game with double digit threes. The team also tied the school record for threes set last season, totaling 307 on the season.
Air Force got off to a quick start, leading 7-0 after two minutes of play. The Falcons built that lead to 12-0 with 15 minutes left in the first half, as UW had shot 0-7 from the field to that point.
“They got the ball moving and on defense I thought they had a tremendous edge, which affected our scoring on the offensive end,” Edwards said.
Before a three from Cody Kelley, Air Force built their 25-0 lead at the 11:43 mark of the first half. Before Kelley’s triple, the Pokes had gone 0-9 from the field while the Falcons shot 9-13.
With the score reading 40-16 with less than five minutes remaining, the Pokes closed the half on a 9-2 run to go into the half trailing 48-27. The Falcons shot 53 percent in the half and scored 16 points off of UW turnovers.
The Cowboys fought to within 16 points with 15 minutes remaining in the game, but the Falcons quickly rebuilt their lead with a 7-1 run to make the score 70-46 with 7:24 remaining.
Air Force maintained that moment en route to the 83-68 lead. Wyoming ended their season 18-14 overall on the year.
