The men’s basketball team took their first loss of the season Wednesday night as they fell to the nationally-ranked Arizona Wildcats 65-94. The Wildcats led throughout the first half, leading to a 31-point deficit that the Cowboys could not overcome.
“It’s one of those deals where you come in on the road to play a top-10 team in the country in a tough place to play,” Linder said. The game was played at Arizona’s McKale Memorial Center in front of a crowd of 13,000.
The Arizona men’s team is currently ranked number 11 in the nation and number 3 in the Pac-12, while Wyoming is number 2 in the Mountain West division and currently unranked nationally.
The Cowboys were overwhelmed by a tough Arizona defense, which is among the best in the nation. The Wildcats forced 11 turnovers in the first half and made 11 three-pointers over the course of the game, showing the team’s depth.
The Wildcats also lead the nation in scoring, with an average of 91.3 points per game.
Wyoming scored the first points of the game, but Arizona then went on a 9-0 scoring run and retained the lead for the rest of the game.
At the end of the first half, the score was 22-53, with another 12-0 scoring run by Arizona to close out the half. The largest lead by the Wildcats was 36 points at the beginning of the second half.
“The thing was we didn’t want to get sped up and we wanted to try to play at our pace, but when you get down that much that early, you start kind of panicking a little bit,” Wyoming head coach Jeff Linder said to the press. “I thought we did panic just a little bit, but credit to them – they’re the ones that forced it.”
In the second half, the Cowboys fared better in terms of scoring and finding their rhythm. They scored 43 points compared to 41 by the Wildcats.
“Once we settled in we were a little bit better, but it’s one of those deals where we are a good team and we have to figure out how we’re going to respond,” Linder said.
The Cowboys were led in scoring by sophomore Guard Xavier Dussell, who scored 22 points. Sophomore Forward Graham Ike also scored 17 points with 3 assists.
Arizona’s Benedict Mathurin led overall scoring during the game, with 24 points and 5 assists.
Arizona was Wyoming’s toughest challenge of the season after opening with an 8-0 winning streak. Although the Cowboys took a tough loss, they are one of the best teams in the nation in terms of shooting statistically and had a successful start to the season.
“That’s ultimately what it boils down to. What’s our response going to be? Can we learn from this to where we continue to grow and get better,” Linder said. “I thought our guys did a good job of sticking together in the second half.”
The Cowboys will hope to improve this Saturday, Dec. 11 when they host the Utah Valley Wolverines at home in the UW Arena-Auditorium.
