Cowgirls open tourney with CSU

Richard Anderson photo
Hillary Carlson drives to the basket past a CSU player earlier in the season.

By Richard Anderson
Wyoming Sports.org

For a team that has been on the road more times than not in the last few weeks, the new format of the Mountain West Conference women’s basketball tournament doesn’t do the Wyoming Cowgirls too many favors.

For Utah, San Diego State and TCU, that’s a different story.

The Cowgirls, 16-13, 8-8 in MWC and the fifth seed, will open the tournament on Tuesdays by facing rival Colorado State, 9-20, 4-12 and the eighth seed. Tip-off is set for 5:30 p.m. at the Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.

To win the tournament, the Cowgirls will have to win four games in five days.
For Utah and San Diego State, which tied for first in the regular season, both teams don’t even play until Friday’s semifinals.

The new format has the top two teams receive byes until the semifinals, and the No. 3 seed, TCU, earning first-round bye. Wyoming, like CSU, New Mexico, BYU, Colorado State and UNLV, are in it for the long haul.

The Cowgirls are also coming off of two road games last week where they played at BYU, came back to Laramie, traveled to New Mexico, then came home again, before leaving Monday for Las Vegas.

“One of the biggest concerns that I have right now is how tired we may be,” Wyoming coach Joe Legerski said. “We’ve traveled five of the last seven days, and that is always a concern, whether we are going to have fresh legs.”

CSU, meanwhile, played its last two games at home.

Even with the odds stacked against them, Legerski said that the new format protects the teams that are the best teams in the league. It came about after last year’s top seed, Utah, was upset in the opening round and didn’t get a favorable draw for the NCAA Tournament.

“They (Utah, SDSU, TCU) have proven over time that they are the best teams,” Legerski said. “The rest of us have some challenges ahead of us, to be able to play for four days. But we had some challenges ahead of us as it was. CSU would have opened up with an 8-9 game, then faced No. 1. We would have faced No. 4. Those were tough challenges in the old format. The challenges have just changed. It will still be very difficult if you are in the bottom half of the league.”

When asked if his Cowgirls would have the legs to play four games in a week, Legerski said he was just worried about having enough legs to play on Tuesday.

“That will be something that we have to wait and see on,” Legerski said. “That is one of the biggest challenges for anybody who starts play on Tuesday.”

The Cowgirls will look for their third win over CSU this season, although both victories were far from easy. Wyoming beat the Rams 64-61 in Fort Collins and topped them again 71-62 in Laramie.

“I look at CSU as a team that ended up winning two games last year in the tournament, and they have a high percentage of those players back who experienced some success,“ Legerski said. “The two previous games were just games played throughout the league. We played well at times and CSU played well at times. I think what it is going to come down to is maybe a longer run together. When the new format, the first round games have really tightened up a bit where you have 5 vs. 8, 6 vs. 7, teams I always figured to be very comparable. It should be a close game.”

The Rams are led by Britney Minor, who is averaging 7.8 points along with 4.2 rebounds. Senior Kandy Beemer is adding 7.6 points, while Amaka Uzomah is leading the way with 6.6 rebounds per game.

Four Cowgirls are scoring in double figures this season, led by sophomore Hillary Carlson, who is averaging 11.6 points, while senior Megan McGuffey is adding 10.6 points. Freshmen Kristen Scheffler and Emma Langford follow closely with 10.4 and 10.3 points respectively.

Legerski said his biggest worry is just winning in the MWC Tournament, something the Cowgirls haven’t had much luck at. In his tenure, Wyoming is just 2-6 in the tourney, and 2-18 overall in the MWC and WAC tournaments combined.

“We have to show up and get a tournament victory. At this time of the year, either you win or you go home,” Legerski said.