‘Pokes Will Play': Wyoming Lands in 32-Team NIT Field

LARAMIE -- At 5:53 on Sunday night, Sundance Wicks made a public plea to the National Invitational Tournament on his personal social media account, saying, in part, his Cowboys would gladly accept an invite to join the 32-team field.

Roughly an hour and 39 minutes later, he got his answer.

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The Wyoming basketball program is postseason bound for the first time since making an NCAA Tournament appearance in March of 2022. Wicks' Cowboys will hit the road Tuesday to take on No. 3 seed Wichita State inside Koch Arena.

Tipoff is scheduled for 5 p.m. Mountain Time and the game will be televised on ESPNU.

"We're not going to shed any tears up here right now, because we're going to try to keep playing postseason basketball," Wyoming's second year head coach said last Wednesday in Las Vegas, just moments after falling 73-70 to UNLV in the opening round of the Mountain West Tournament. "So, that's our No. 1 goal is to try to play with this team as long as we can, whether it's NIT or CBI (It was announced late last week that the latter was canceled "due to circumstances beyond our control.").

"We're going to try to play more basketball. We have a young team that wants to continue to play. We have a great senior leader in Leland Walker, who deserves to play as long as he possibly can. I just want this experience to go on."

This will be Wyoming's ninth trip to the NIT and first since 2003. The overall record in this tournament sits at 7-8 with four of those victories coming in a run to the championship game back in 1986. The Cowboys, led by Fennis Dembo, fell to Ohio State 73-63 inside Madison Square Garden.

Wyoming (18-14, 9-11) will take on a Shocker squad that finished the season 22-11 overall and 13-5 in American Athletic Conference play. South Florida knocked off WSU 70-55 in the league's title game, punching its ticket to the Big Dance.

Before Sunday's loss, Paul Mills' team reeled off seven straight wins, three of which came on the road.

The Cowboys and Shockers have met on the court 13 times with the latter holding a 10-3 advantage in the overall series.

WSU appeared in the NIT last season, dropping an 89-79 decision to Oklahoma State. Overall, the program is 11-13 in this tournament, winning a national title in 2011 with wins over Nebraska, Virginia Tech, College of Charleston, Washington State and Alabama. The Shockers made it to the semifinals in 2019.

Wyoming won five of its last seven outings, including road victories at Grand Canyon and San Jose State. Walker is the team's leading scorer, averaging nearly 14 points per game. Freshman Naz Meyer nets 12.8 and Damarion Dennis chips in with 11. Khaden Bennett also averages double figures with 10.4.

All four are guards.

"I'm not going to sit up here and talk about would have, should have, could have and what these guys mean to me right now, because our season is not over yet," Wicks said last week. "We're going to continue to play."

WSU is led by guard Kenyon Giles, who pours in 19.7 a night while shooting better than 42% from the field. Forward Karon Boyd adds nearly 11.

The Cowboys, who are one of five Mountain West teams in the field, joining Colorado State, Nevada, UNLV and New Mexico, finished the season with a net ranking of 99. Their best wins came against Nevada, CSU and GCU. The Shockers landed a net ranking of 78, winning two of six quad-1 games, including outlasting USF on the road, 86-85, in overtime.

Aside from the obvious task at hand -- roster retention with the NCAA Transfer Portal looming -- Wicks said experience and success in the postseason is a critical step in returning this program to contention.

"I want them to keep feeling these moments and keep having these moments," he said, referring to a roster led by a pair of rookies, Gavin Gores and Meyer, along with other underclassmen like Bennett and Dennis, among others. "To fight for championships, you have to put yourself in championship environments and go play in a tournament, go play another tournament and reset and start all over again."

The winner of Tuesday night's tilt in Kansas will face either No. 2 seed Oklahoma State or Davidson.