Last season, previous Wyoming basketball head coach Jeff Linder exhaustingly lamented the lack of attendance and support for his team that ended the season 15-17. In fourteen home games last season, the Cowboys only drew an average of 3,937 fans to an arena that can seat over 11,000.
This year’s new head man, Sundance Wicks, famous for his catchphrase “bring your own juice,” knows the importance of filling out the 11,612 seats surrounding Maury Brown court at the Arena-Auditorium. Wicks especially wants to see the student section filled out, even designating the lower bleachers of the student section the “juicebox” when he invited students via email to a pep rally to kick off the 2024-2025 season with an opportunity to meet and interact with a new-look Cowboy basketball squad that features 11 new faces and only five returning players from a year ago.
“The only thing that separates us from being intramurals or rec league is fans,” Wicks said of the importance of bringing fans back to the Arena Auditorium. “It’s the life blood of college athletics. If students don’t show up, if fans don’t show up, then you don’t have a program.”
Wicks, a Gillette native, has always bled brown and gold since the day he was born. After graduating from Campbell County High School in 1999, Wicks went on to play collegiate basketball at Northern State University in Aberdeen, South Dakota and played a year professionally overseas for Sodertalje Kings in Sweden before coming back to his alma mater to begin his coaching career as a graduate assistant.
Wicks began his Wyoming coaching career as an assistant under Jeff Linder from 2020-2023, where he was a crucial piece in the Cowboys earning their first at-large bid to the NCAA tournament since 2002. Wicks then got the opportunity to become the head coach at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay, his first opportunity to be the head coach at the D-I level after a two year head coaching tenure at D-II Missouri Western. With just one year at Green Bay, Wicks was able to orchestrate one of the greatest turnarounds in recent college basketball history as he turned a 3-29 record at Green Bay the year prior to an 18-14 record in his lone year at the helm.
Wicks will be looking to replicate that success at Wyoming, as the Cowboys’ record over the past two years sits at lackluster 24-39 after Linder had led the team with a 25 win campaign during the 2022 season. Even with Linder leaving the program to become an assistant at Texas Tech, his presence will still be felt in the program as Wicks draws much of his offensive knowledge from Linder.
“He was so gifted. One of the best work ethics I’ve ever seen as a head coach,” Wicks said of Linder. “Schematically and offensively, [he] studies the game at a high level, [he’s] a basketball savant. I was a really bad offensive coach before I came to Wyoming…I would say, almost probably three quarters of my offensive acumen and development came from Jeff Linder.”
Remnants of Linder’s roster from last year still remain on the team as well, as they look for a resurgence of success under Wicks in his first year.
Sharpshooting senior guard Kobe Newton returns as the most productive player retained from last year, as he came off the bench to average 4.5 points while shooting an impressive 49.1% from beyond the arc last season. Newton has seemingly already found his range before the season has even started, as he began a perfect 3/3 from deep and ended the Cowboys’ exhibition match against the College of Idaho 4/5 from three.
Oleg Kojenets also returns as the tallest player on this year’s roster, as the seven foot tall junior also came off the bench last year to average 3.5 points and 2.5 rebounds a year ago for the Cowboys.
Sophomore Nigle Cook returns after only appearing in a single game last year, but assumes to take a bigger role this season in Wicks’ system as a perimeter threat who can knock down shots.
Walk-ons Cort Roberson and Levi Brown also return from last year, as Roberson remains as the only player on the roster to have played in the Brown and Gold for longer than a year. Wicks also added Sheridan native Garrett Spielman as a walk-on this season.
While not much production from last season returns to this year’s roster, Wicks is content with the guys who chose to stay.
“It’s important to retain the right kid. If you got to convince or beg somebody to stay, then you have to beg them to play, and you don’t want to be in a situation where you’re begging someone to come and play for the Pokes. You want them to want to be here,” Wicks said.
Wicks also recruited and assembled a roster of hard-knocked players who perfectly resemble the “Cowboy tough” mantra. Wicks surveyed the country for a group of players who could fit his high octane and energetic coaching style. What he found, in just 27 days, were 10 guys ready to bring their own juice to Cowboy basketball.
“One, you gotta fit Wyoming. Two, you have to fit me, my style. I’m high energy, right? You got to bring your own juice every single day. And then three, I think you got to be intelligent. You got to be tough and skilled right? Intelligence, toughness and skill,” Wicks said of his recruiting philosophy when signing his roster in such a short amount of time.
Wicks was able to keep transfers Obi Agbim, Touko Tainamo and Matija Belic, as well as freshman Jehvion Starwood as hold-overs from Linder’s recruiting class before he left the program.
Agbim has emerged as one of the most promising players from practice, as the 6-3 senior point guard led Fort Lewis College in scoring, averaging 15.5 points and 2.9 assists last season. Agbim also only has one year of eligibility remaining. Agbim will be manning the point for the Cowboys this season and played the most minutes of the course of the Pokes’ exhibition game.
Tainamo comes to the Cowboys after spending three seasons at Denver University. Tainamo averaged an impressive 15.2 points and 7.7 rebounds a season ago with the Pioneers and is also a member of the Finland national team. Tainamo was the Pokes’ leading scorer in their exhibition, as the 6’9 big man scored 18 points and was 7/11 from the field.
Belic started his career with two seasons at UC Santa Barbara, where he came off the bench to average 3.9 points and 2.4 rebounds last season.
Starwood enters the team as a three star high school recruit from Illinois.
Wicks then brought in six more transfers, many of which he was recruiting at Green Bay. Dontaie Allen, Jordan Nesbitt and Cole Henry all enter the team with a single year of eligibility remaining and all three players come to the Pokes with different journeys.
Allen began his career at Kentucky and was named Mr. Basketball in the state of Kentucky during his senior season of high school. After playing two years at Kentucky, Allen transferred to Western Kentucky where he has played for the last two years. Last season, Allen averaged 8.2 points and shot 40% from deep, and was 4/8 from deep in the Pokes’ exhibition game.
Nesbitt began his career at Memphis, where he only played in three games in one season. After transferring to his hometown and competing at Saint Louis for a year, Nesbitt again transferred to play at Hampton University where he’s been the last two years. Nesbitt averaged 10.2 points, 4.9 rebounds and 4.3 assists in his final year at Hampton. Nesbitt looks to be a do-it-all glue guy for the Pokes, as he had his hands on a lot of plays in the Pokes’ exhibition game with eight points, four rebounds, three assists and a block.
Henry has spent all four years of his college career at Northern Iowa. In his senior season, Henry averaged 3.0 points and 1.8 rebounds, in considerably limited limits. He will likely assume a much bigger role for the Cowboys in Wicks’ system. Henry scored nine points in the Pokes’ exhibition game and also showed off his passing ability, leading the team with four assists in the exhibition as well.
A.J. Wills, Abou Magassa and Scottie Ebube round out the roster for this season as transfers who still have eligibility remaining after this season.
Wills enters the team after playing one year at Holy Cross. In his freshman campaign, Wills averaged 5.5 points and 1.0 assist. Wills looks to serve as a back-up to Agbim at the point guard position and was able to knock down a three in the Pokes’ exhibition game.
Magassa enters the team after redshirting his freshman year at Saint Louis. Magassa has already shown an impressive nose for the ball, leading the Cowboys’ in rebounding in their exhibition game with nine boards.
Ebube comes to the Cowboys after two seasons at Southern Illinois where the 6’10 big man averaged 6.0 points and 3.6 rebounds. Wicks noted that Ebube has dropped 30 pounds since joining the Cowboys’ roster and should be in much better shape to play more minutes with the Pokes this season.
This rosters’ synergy will have to come together quickly if they want to find success early on in their schedule that Wicks crafted for this team to properly challenge themselves ahead of Mountain West play. Some of the biggest tests on the Cowboys’ schedule includes a trip to Lubbock against Texas Tech and Linder in the third game of the season, the Cancun Challenge tournament and a neutral site game against BYU in Salt Lake City that will serve as a de facto road game for the Pokes.
“Giving a vast array of experiences on the road, and then having your home games and just having our guys play in all different venues and all different types of settings at different times, to prepare you for the Mountain West,” Wicks said of the schedule.
The Cowboys will get their first taste of Mountain West play very early on in December, heading to Utah State to take on last year’s Mountain West regular season champions in arguably one of the hardest venues to find a win in. Wicks noted how this conference game, snuck in the schedule before conference play really kicks off in full swing, can make or break your season and come back to haunt you, or boost your team, later on.
“It’s always interesting when you have to play a league game in the midst of your non-conference schedule,” Wicks said of the Cowboys’ game against Utah State on December 4. “We did it at Green Bay last year…those games haunt you or help you later on down the line. We went 1-1 in our [league] games in December at Green Bay, and that kind of spurred us on.”
The Cowboys will certainly hope that a win at Utah State that early on would be able to spur them on later in the season, especially to prove all the doubters wrong after they were recently picked ninth in the preseason Mountain West poll, only above Fresno State and Air Force. While Wicks’, his staff and the entire team put little weight into preseason polls and accolades, it is still something that lingers in the back of their mind as motivation throughout the course of the season.
“You’re always trying to outperform expectations, that should be part of life as a competitor. You should want to outperform your expectations,” Wicks said.
“But, if we use that as fodder, that’s just emotional manipulation. That’s going to be fleeting, it’s not going to last very long. Not sure anybody’s talked about it in our program since it came out,” Wicks continued about the Cowboys’ placement in the preseason rankings.
The Cowboys will begin their first campaign of the Wicks era when they take on Concordia University at Saint Paul on November 4.
