After the Cowboys’ disastrous road loss against Texas Tech, Wyoming head man Sundance Wicks urged his team to come back with a new level of passion when they took on the Utah Tech Trailblazers at home.
Wicks called his team “passionless” after the Pokes’ blowout road loss at Texas Tech. A 47-point margin separating the Cowboys and the Red Raiders in the loss backed up his claim. A deflated Cowboy defense gave up 96 points and allowed the opposing Red Raiders to shoot 63.9% from the field and 55.6% from deep. Offensively, 25 turnovers kept the Cowboys out of a rhythm offensively for most of the night.
How would the Cowboys stomach such an ugly loss?
They would do what this team has been doing everyday since this roster has assembled: they’d learn from it and let it fuel them down the road of the season.
“I feel like, in order to win, sometimes you do got to lose. I feel like we learned from that, I feel like that’s going to help us coming into…the Mountain West,” senior Jordan Nesbitt said of the road loss.
“I honestly thought we needed it to just kind of humble us a little bit and put us back on the right track of things, you know,” fellow senior Kobe Newton added.
While the Trailblazers may not be nearly the caliber of team Texas Tech was, the Cowboys’ response was evident nonetheless: they came into this one with more passion, particularly on the defensive side of the ball.
In response to their poor defensive effort on the road, the Cowboys would hold the Trailblazers to 35.6% from the field and 20% from deep. Still, Wicks and the team still felt like they left some out on the court, despite the relative ease that had when handling the Trailblazers in this one.
“The first half, I thought we got there. Second half, I thought we relented a little bit, we wilted a little bit,” Wicks said.
After ballooning their lead up to 28 points with 6:19 left, the Trailblazers ultimately cut the lead down to 17 by the time this one was said and done. While the Cowboys did look extremely formidable in spurts, including a 14-0 run that gave the Cowboys a big lead early in the first half, Wicks is still looking for his team to put a complete game together.
In terms of putting together pretty complete games, the Cowboys’ back court again impressed, as Newton led all scorers with 19 points. Point guard Obi Agbim again had double figures with 12 points and Nesbitt had his second double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 rebounds.
However, the Cowboy frontcourt remains to still have yet to show off the potential Wicks’ touted his bigs could have before the season began. Denver transfer Touko Tainamo led the Cowboys’ frontcourt, which was missing Scottie Ebube in the contest due to injury, with nine points and five rebounds. Graduate transfer Cole Henry finished with six points and three rebounds and seven footer Oleg Kojenets had six points and five rebounds
“We’re going to have to have a presence inside,” Wicks said.
If the Cowboys can see more equal production at all five spots, this team may just begin to turn some heads.
However, one statistic still looms large over the head of all players on this Cowboy team. After turning the ball over an astonishing 25 times against Texas Tech and chipping in 16 more turnovers tonight, the Cowboys currently average around 15 turnovers a game.
If the Cowboys want a chance at any future success, that number will definitely have to be reduced. The Cowboys desperately need to clean up their game.
“We’re a pretty talented team, and that’s going to take us to a certain point, [but] we’re going to hit a wall if we don’t become more disciplined [and] have a little bit more toughness,” Wicks said.
The Cowboys will return to action against Southeastern Louisiana at home on November 22.
