Archive for December, 2009

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Poke Profile: Afam Muojeke

December 31st, 2009

afam-muojekeAs conference play nears for both the Wyoming men’s and women’s teams, I will post player profiles on the blog similar to what I did during the New Mexico Bowl. I start with UW forward Afam Muojeke:

Afam Muojeke

Position: Forward

Height/weight: 6-8, 210

Hometown: Jamaica, Queens, N.Y.

Major: Social sciences

Favorite class: Psychology

Favorite TV show: Fresh Prince of Bel-Air

Favorite movie: Home Alone

Top songs in your IPod: Soulja Boy, Gucci Mane

Favorite food: Fried chicken

Dream date: Kim Kardashian

Player you model your game after: Joe Johnson of the Atlanta Hawks

Most memorable moment playing basketball: “Winning the first round of the Mountain West Tournament last year.”

Most embarrassing moment playing basketball: “In junior high I was playing in a championship game in an AAU tournament in California and I shot an air ball at the free-throw line with 20 seconds left and the game was tied. We still won the game.”

Role model: “A guy from my neighborhood named J.R.”

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Posted in Basketball, Player Profiles, UW men's basketball

Wyoming vs Adams State Live Blog!

December 31st, 2009

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Posted in Basketball, Live Blog, UW Basketball, UW men's basketball

UW-Akron post-game thoughts

December 30th, 2009

Well, another tough loss for the Cowboys as they fall 85-76.

As I say in my column in Thursday’s paper, the extremes from this team need to stop. The Pokes are either extremely good or extremely bad and it’s not good enough to do both and win with any consistency.

Yes, Akron was good and yes they are more experienced and veteran than UW. But the Cowboys were up seven with 10:21 to play. They must learn to finish games and be more consistent. Easy for me to say, but if not wins will be hard to come by in conference play.

No JayDee Luster with a twisted ankle, and that didn’t help UW’s cause. True freshman Desmar Jackson had nine points and four assists, but also five turnovers. Still, UW could have and should have won even without Luster.

Sophomore guard A.J. Davis was impressive with 18 points, including 15 in the second half and he sparked a second-half rally.

There were 52 fouls called, and UW made just 1 of 9 3-pointers. Akron made 9 of 16 and outscored UW 26-13 in second-chance points.

Officiating was iffy at times, but I’m not going down that road.

One last dress rehearsal before conference play next week. Division II Adams State comes to the A-A Saturday at 2 p.m. UW will go after its 300th win in this building.

It should have been in this game with Akron.

See Thursday’s paper for more on the game.

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Posted in UW men's basketball, UW-Akron Game

Hammerschmidt talks

December 30th, 2009

Tuesday was a busy day for Dan Hammerschmidt.

The former Wyoming assistant head football coach and receivers coach took at job at Colorado State to be the receivers coach and pass game coordinator.

And it was his deep ties to CSU that led him back there.

He was a player there in the 1980s and spent 13 seasons as an assistant coach. His two kids were born there. And even though he was at Rice in 2008 and UW in 2009, Hammerschmidt felt he couldn’t pass up the chance to go back to his alma mater.

“I always thought I would go back some day, I just didn’t think it would be this fast,” he said Wednesday. “I played there, I coached with a lot of the guys there now.”

But that doesn’t mean Hammerschmidt didn’t enjoy his time at UW, or left because he didn’t like Laramie, his fellow coaches or his players.

“It was hard to leave (UW coach) Dave (Christensen),” he said. “I talked to my players (Wednesday) an told them to keep believing in Dave. He’s a good one. … He did his best to try and talk me out of it. I believe in everything he’s doing.”

“This had nothing to do with me being unhappy or anything like that. I really liked it, and was so impressed with the passion and ferver the people of Wyoming have for their team. I wish every school could see that and experience that.”

Hammerschmidt said the whole thing happened fast, and after UW’s 35-28 double-overtime victory over Fresno State in the New Mexico Bowl on Dec. 19.

Christensen and his family are in Houston for the Texas Bowl where Missouri plays Navy on Thursday. As most of you know, Christensen spent eight years at Missouri as offensive coordinator before being hired at UW. He isn’t there looking for a job, but to watch his former team and spend time with friends and family.

However, he could be looking for a new coach while he’s in Texas, too, or have one already in mind. Christensen hasn’t returned phone messages left for him.

Christensen could hire from within. Running backs coach Jason Ray was a receiver at Missouri when Christensen was there. Director of football operations Jason Petrino and director of recruiting Matt Rahl both could be candidates to become position coaches as well.

Switching gears to Wyoming basketball, join me for the live blog for tonight’s game with Akron at about 6:30 p.m. at  http://wyomingcowboysblog.com/2009/12/24/wyoming-vs-akron-live-blog/

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Posted in Coaches, Football, UW men's basketball

TCU gets top play in USA Today

December 30th, 2009

Wednesday’s sports cover story in the USA Today is on TCU football. Good play for the Horned Frogs and the Mountain West Conference.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/football/mwest/2009-12-29-tcu_N.htm

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Posted in General, Moutain West Conference

UW-Akron five things to watch

December 29th, 2009

1. Turnovers: See Wednesday’s paper for more on this, but in a nutshell UW must force more turnovers and turn it over less. You can say that for any team in any game, but this certainly holds true for the Cowboys.

2. Little guys, big roles: UW sophomore point guard JayDee Luster and Akron sophomore point guard Anthony “Humpty” Hitchens are both listed at 5-9. Rarely do point guards this small get to play against each other at the Division I level. Both are good players and this match up should be fun to watch. Whoever plays the best will likely be on the winning team.

3. Post presence: Coach Heath Schroyer told me that Akron is physical and good in the post. How UW post players Boubacar Sylla, Adam Waddell, Djibril Thiam and Amath M’Baye play on both ends of the court will be crucial for the Cowboys.

4. Play a complete game: Playing well in spurts isn’t good enough for this UW team to win a lot of games. To expect perfection for an entire game is unrealistic, but lulls for five to 10 minutes at a time will mean another loss for the Cowboys against a team like Akron.

5. Speed up the tempo: As far as the team’s health goes, UW is in as good of shape as it was since the first few games. That means the Cowboys should try and up the tempo of the game both offensively and defensively to take advantage of the 7,220 feet of altitude and get Akron out of its comfort level. The Zips have played just one true road game this season.

Live blogging is back for this game. Things will start around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday from the Arena-Auditorium where the Cowboys will try and win their 300th game out of 400 played there. For the live blog go to: http://wyomingcowboysblog.com/2009/12/24/wyoming-vs-akron-live-blog/

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Posted in UW men's basketball, UW-Akron Game

BCS vs. Playoff

December 28th, 2009

An interesting piece from the BCS executive director on the down side of having a college football playoff. Gee, big surprise he would think like this.

Just something to chew on as we are knee-deep in the bowl season.

Bowl Championship Series
Every Game Counts

Bill Hancock, Executive Director

A Not-So-Sweet Sixteen

http://playoffproblem.com/wordpress/?p=88

The BCS launches a new series today that takes an in-depth look at the challenges presented by various playoff proposals.  In the weeks ahead, these analyses will be posted at www.playoffproblem.com

Today’s analysis examines a hypothetical 16-team playoff, with 11 conference champions receiving automatic berths and five at-large teams filling out the brackets based on the final BCS Standings. The analysis can be found at www.playoffproblem.com/wordpress/?p=88   

“Playoffs sound great on paper, but once the details become clear, we believe they would trigger as much—if not more—contention than today’s system produces.   Playoff proponents can sidestep these problems in a hypothetical world, but we can’t in the real world,” said Bill Hancock, Executive Director of the BCS.

“It’s not that the college presidents couldn’t devise a playoff plan; they could, but at great loss to the game that we all love.  The playoff plans that have been considered present real problems on a range of fronts—from the number of teams in the playoff bracket, to where the games would be played, to the burden on the fans, to a playoff’s effect on the regular season and bowls—which is why higher education leaders have rejected them,” said Hancock.

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Posted in Football, General

Merry Christmas!

December 24th, 2009

Scrambling to get some work done today before spending a little down time over Christmas, but before I do that I just wanted to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

And, also to thank all of those who have checked out this blog, participated in the live blogs and for the comments and feedback.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Posted in General

Wyoming vs Akron Live Blog

December 24th, 2009

Robert will be live blogging the mens basketball game vs Akron on December 30th.

Happy Holidays!

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Posted in Basketball, Live Blog

UW-Northern Iowa five things to watch

December 22nd, 2009

1. Three’s Compangamy: This is two-fold. UW must knock down some 3-pointers, which is nothing new as it shoots just 22 percent from behind the 3-point range. The Cowboys made seven treys against South Dakota so maybe that is getting better. But more importantly, UW must defend the 3-point line in this game. Northern Iowa made 14 in its last game, and a big reason why the Cowboys beat the Panthers 74-65 last season in Casper.

2. Better defense: Coach Heath Schroyer said from Day 1 he wanted and expected his team to play better defense. So far it hasn’t happened. UW is last in the MWC in scoring defense (74.3 ppg) and allowed 74.2 last season. Each of its last eight opponents have scored 70 or more points.

3. Turn off the turnovers: Twenty-nine at Tennessee last week was laughable, and took away a solid first-half effort from the Cowboys. Nine against South Dakota is more like it. For UW to have a chance in this game and most of the others as conference play approaches it can’t average more 12 or 13 a game.

4. Big Bouba: In last year’s game 7-foot-1 Northern Iowa center Jordan Eglseder went off for 31 points and 11 rebounds. UW now has 7-2 Boubacar Sylla in the middle, and even though his stats aren’t eye-popping (4.5 ppg, 4.1 rpg) he needs to play well defensively against Eglseder so he doesn’t go off again. It also would be nice to see Sylla become more productive on the offensive end, but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. A good defensive effort tonight would be huge, and also see him play more than his 14 minutes per game so far this season.

5. More than Muojeke: Four players average in double figures for the Cowboys, led by sophomore forward Afam Muojeke’s 16.8 ppg, and seven average six points or more per game. That’s how Schroyer envisioned the scoring would be this season. UW needs that kind of balance in this game. Muojeke is this team’s go-to guy on offense, and that’s fine. But if UW can get other consistent scorers, that will take pressure of Muojeke and prevent him from not turn the ball over so much. He leads the team with 35 turnovers in eight games.

See Wednesday’s paper for more on this game.

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Posted in UW men's basketball, UW-Northern Iowa game