LARAMIE — There isn’t much on the line tonight in California.
The University of Wyoming men’s basketball team (14-16 overall, 7-10 Mountain West) has already locked up the No. 8 seed in next week’s MW tournament going into the regular-season finale against Fresno State.
The Cowboys will turn around and rematch the Bulldogs (11-19, 4-13) four days later in the first round of the conference tournament in Las Vegas.
While it’d be easy for the Cowboys to overlook their final regular season game, coach Jeff Linder wants his team to use it to build a head of steam going into postseason play.
“Obviously, you just want to try and get better in the next game,” Linder said after Tuesday’s win over Air Force. “We are who we are. This is not a team where there’s a lot of adjusting and doing a lot of tricky things. That’s kind of the nature of college basketball right now when you have a new team with new guys.
“... For us, it’s just a matter of, can we go out — regardless of if we’re playing at Fresno or the Mountain West tournament — each possession and play with a certain level of discipline and effort that’s required to win games in this league?”
The Cowboys broke the Bulldogs’ hearts in the first matchup in January. After UW erased a 12-point deficit with just under 11 minutes left in the second half, guard Akuel Kot sank a game-winning jump shot as time expired to lift the Cowboys to a 67-66 win at the Arena-Auditorium.
UW snapped a four-game skid with its 74-63 home win over Air Force on Tuesday. The Cowboys have the worst scoring defense in the conference at 75.3 points allowed per game, but they lead the MW in 3-point shooting at 36.6%. UW is eighth in scoring offense at 72.4 points per game.
Tulsa transfer Sam Griffin leads the Cowboys at 17 points per game, a mark that ranks fourth in the MW. Kot (13.6 points), Mason Walters (12.4) and Brendan Wenzel (11.5) are also averaging double digits this season.
The Bulldogs are near the bottom of the conference on both sides of the floor, ranking ninth in scoring defense (73.1 points allowed) and 10th in scoring offense (67.8). Isaiah Hill leads Fresno State in scoring at 12.3 points, followed by former UW guard Xavier DuSell at 11.8.
“They’re a good team,” Wenzel said Tuesday. “As far as the Mountain West goes, anyone can beat anybody. We have to lock in for this last game before the conference tournament so we can go in with momentum.”
The Bulldogs have lost six consecutive games going into this weekend. Fresno State’s four conference wins all came against the only two teams below it in the conference standings (Air Force and San Jose State).
Fresno State leads the all-time series 22-16, but the Cowboys have won four of the past five meetings. UW is 4-15 playing on the Bulldogs’ home floor.
The Cowboys and Bulldogs will tip off at 5 p.m. Saturday on the MW Network.
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Alex Taylor is the assistant editor for WyoSports and covers University of Wyoming athletics. He can be reached at ataylor@wyosports.net. Follow him on X at @alex_m_taylor22.
