On a chilly Halloween afternoon, Wyoming men’s basketball head coach Sundance Wicks opened his inaugural weekly press conference with a harrowing account of the Wyoming Cowboys’ first opponent of the season, the Concordia University, St. Paul Golden Bears.
Who?
Concordia University, St. Paul is a D-II school competing in the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference (NSIC), the same conference Wicks’ basketball alma mater, Northern State, plays in. Wicks versed the Golden Bears a number of times as a conference matchup when he played at Northern State from 1999 to 2003.
Wicks recounted playing a number of memorable games at the Gangelhoff Center, the homecourt of the Golden Bears where the NSIC conference tournament takes place every year. The Pokes’ first year head man recalled a haunting loss to the Golden Bears on their senior night during his senior year.
“And still, actually to this day, [I] remember senior night, my senior year at Concordia, St. Paul. They were not very good at the time, but Dan Drivekey, who played a total of 25 minutes all year long, starts on senior night and ends up hitting five or six threes and beats us at senior night,” Wicks reminisced with a smile on his face.
However, Wicks likely won’t be smiling much if his Cowboy teams allows this Concordia, St. Paul team to get hot and beat the Cowboys on college basketball’s opening night in the Arena-Auditorium similar to how Wicks fell to the Golden Bears on their senior night in his last year playing college ball. Losing to a D-II school would be devastating for the Cowboys, who have much higher aspirations this season than losing to the Golden Bears.
However, this doesn’t mean this Golden Bears team will be a walk in the park for the Cowboys to beat. Their roster features D-I talent, some of which this Cowboys’ team is familiar with. Antwan Kimmons, a senior guard for the Golden Bears, was recruited with and played with the Cowboys’ graduate forward, Cole Henry, at Northern Iowa.
“I love Antwan Kimmons, he’s a great dude. We came into UNI together as freshmen,” Henry said of his old teammate. “He had a kid, and so he moved back home to play for Concordia, St. Paul, but he would have played all his years at UNI, he had a bright future at the Division I level ready for him. He’s a tough competitor and great guy.”
While it would be easy to look ahead of the Golden Bears in the Cowboys’ schedule, especially with a road contest against Texas Tech on the near horizon, Wicks is stressing the importance of taking things one game at a time with his team. He wants them to get one game better with this match-up.
“Concordia, St. Paul is our Super Bowl. Let’s not get it twisted, it’s the biggest game we got, it’s the only game we got coming up. So, if you think we’re going to take anybody lightly, you’re crazy. We have no ability and no chance to take anybody lightly” Wicks said.
If the Cowboys want any success this season to avenge the lacklusterness of the previous two seasons, they are going to have to buy into Wicks’ mentality, one that garnered one of the greatest turnarounds in recent college basketball history at Green Bay just a year ago.
“At Green Bay, they weren’t spoiled. They hadn’t had a lot of success in recent history, and everyone wanted something. For us, we haven’t been spoiled here lately, right?” Wicks said.
“We’re trying to keep our humility and know that we’re hungry. We need to eat.”
