Look, mining for talent is one of the most difficult responsibilities of any executive position. Wyoming Athletics are in a worse post position at the sound of the recruiting starting gun than most other schools in that we have just as many positions to fill and only a fraction of the potential talent pool that schools in the SEC, Big-10, Big-12, PAC-12, and even most of the MAC and WAC schools have to draw from. Our low population density around Laramie doesn't somehow distill and concentrate the talent and the D1- level talent is not fundamentally proportional to population.
To make it simple- if a city of one million can be expected to produce twenty D1 football and basketball players, then a state of half a million can be expected to produce half that, right? I'd argue no, they can be expected to produce less than half because the level of competition among skilled players is diluted by the geography. A player who might be a Rivals four-star DB coming out of Houston, same exact kid will be a two- or three-star at best coming out of a 5A Wyoming school, because his competitive peers are spread throughout the state and he may not even encounter someone of his abilities. This can result in an arrested development of those skills.
As a long time skier, when I was young, I always skied with people who were much, much better than myself. As an adult, I've surpassed many of the ski companions of my youth, but had I not challenged myself by trying to keep up with them, I'd've likely never even achieved their level of proficiency, let alone progressed beyond it.
Fact is, Wyoming lacks that concentration of both talent and competition that might otherwise produce basketball and football talent in numbers that would seem more proportional to the state's population. As someone who has had to mine for talent, I can honestly say that the old saying, "You fish where the fish are," pretty much applies to a program like Wyoming Athletics.
In short, if the policy of Hathaway = No Athletic Scholarships to Wyoming student athletes exists, I'd call it sound policy in need of a bit of tweeking.