Cowgirls upset No. 22 TCU

John McKnight photo
Wyoming junior Hillary Carlson drives to the basket Wednesday against TCU.

UW-TCU statistics

by Richard Anderson
Wyoming sports.org

Even with a 15-point loss at San Diego State on Saturday, Wyoming coach Joe Legerski thought his team played well.

You can only imagine how he felt after knocking off No. 22 TCU 73-67 Wednesday night in the Arena-Auditorium.

"What I told to my staff and everyone was, we're going to enjoy this one tonight, but we'll worry about the next game in the morning and we'll start breaking it down," Legerski said of this Saturday's matchup in Albuquerque against New Mexico. "We're still a young group and we're going to experience some things. This was a positive one tonight. We want as many of these as we can. But we know how difficult the tasks are ahead for this group."

The Cowgirls (2-1 MWC, 11-4) took advantage of cold TCU shooting early, as the Lady Frogs missed their first 11 shots of the game. Wyoming led 39-25 at halftime.

“It was a big win tonight for the Cowgirl basketball program,” Legerski said.

It was Wyoming's first win over a ranked program since November of 2008 when the Cowgirls defeated then No. 25 Wisconsin.

“You can't go into a conference game worrying about national rankings,” said junior Hillary Carlson, who scored a career-high 29 points on 8 of 13 from the field, along with 11 of 15 from the free-throw line. She also grabbed 11 rebounds. “It was just another conference game and we wanted to get a win just like another other game.”

Emily Carter scored 20 points for TCU (2-1, 12-4).

TCU chipped away at the Cowgirls' lead and tied the game at 51-51 with 4:52 to play on a three-point play by Antoinette Thompson.

Wyoming answered with 11 straight points, including three 3-pointers by Kristen Scheffler, who was previously scoreless in the game.

TCU came back with consecutive 3-pointers by Carter and Helen Sverrisdottir to cut the lead back to five, and Carter added two late 3-pointers. But Wyoming was 9 of 14 from the free-throw line in the final 1:22 of the game to secure the win.

"Give them credit, they hit some tough shots, which ultimately won them the game," TCU coach Jeff Mittie said.

Aubrey Vandiver scored 18 points for Wyoming, followed by Emma Langford with 13 and Scheffler with 11. The Cowgirls finished 21 of 29 from the free-throw line, to 11 of 17 for TCU.

Sverrisdottir scored 15 for TCU, with TK LaFleur adding 12.

“I thought Wyoming played a very good game; we just didn't respond well to the tough atmosphere,” Mittie said. “We just could not buy a basket down the stretch and we couldn't battle back from that.”

Not only was it a big win for the Cowgirls, Legerski said it was a big win for the conference.

“I thought we played very well against San Diego State. Somebody said to me, but you were defeated by 15 points,’ but we played very well," Legerski said. “The talent level in this league -- and I’ll talk about this all day long -- is tremendous. I think we have a good group and we’re getting better. The confidence should build off of games like this. Once again, it is holding serve at home.”