The optimism surrounding men's basketball is quite surprising to me. Wicks has two 9th place finishes in his first two years here. He has a 35% winning percentage in the MWC. We have a LONG way to go before we are anywhere close to challenging for a MWC championship.
I think the slate needs to be cleaned for Wicks’ first season. He was hired too late to get much of anything out of the portal. They improved in year two. I expect them to improve more this season. Ask me how I feel about him after this year.
Ditto. we freaking suck at that sport too
At this point, I can still rally behind Wicks for one year for sure maybe two.
Sums up my thoughts as well.
I think the biggest reason for the optimism around Sunny is that he's an open book. He admits his failings, he talks about what he's telling the team they need to improve on, and he's realistic about what it will take to build a winning squad in Laramie.
I like Sunny too. I also liked Joe Glenn.
Fully agree with the Joe Glenn comparison. It killed me to admit that it was time to move on from Cowboy Joe, but it was definitely time.
To your last point, is there data to support the notion that UW is not doing enough to recruit and retain kids from the WY community college system? I seem to recall anemic admissions from our community colleges post-degree. I would say that mining the CCs would be a great place to start to grow admissions. Even then, if I recall correctly, UW and the state actually loses money on each student that enrolls. I know we have constitutional directives to keep it as nearly free as possible, but that has to be read within the sideboards of not going bankrupt. But if you are going to increase tuition, you damn well better have programs to justify the spend.
Community colleges are a mixed bag.
Good stuff and thank you for the thorough analysis and response. I very much agree with your thoughts. To me, the kids with associates degrees that are not in certificated programs are ripe for the picking for UW. They know Wyoming and are largely from the state or region. They are lower risk as they have already succeeded in achieving a degree. I would surmise they are more likely to stay in WY or the region. Seems in the "no brainer" realm.
I can speak to this directly as I attended Sherican College for two years and obtained an associates degree prior to transferring to UW. Unfortunately, my graduating class was one year ahead of the Hathaway scholarship, so it made more sense to go the community college route for the first two years and save a significant amount of money.
Just give residents of bordering states 1.5 or 2 times in-state tuition. Would probably see a thousand or more matriculate on that discount alone.
Absolutely agree. This is a no brainer too.
That's what I have heard. And I agree wholeheartedly. Our CCs are a huge strength and UW has a built-in advantage to land their 4-year track students - especially with Hathaway. They should have recruiters in all of the CCs and the relationships between the CC and UW admissions offices should be ironclad.
