Why Wyoming basketball will underachieve this year

[Cheywypoke]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not usually a doom and gloom guy. I guess the best description right now is that I've become a calloused Wyoming fan. I hope I'm wrong, but here's why I think we will once again be a disappointed fan base come January or February.
1. Cowboy Curse - It always seems that about the time we start getting our hopes up something bad happens Ex. Martinez, suspensions, departures, Nance injury, etc. Unfortunately, I think something like those listed will happen again this year. I don't know what, but something will.
2. Nance (and this kind of goes along with #1) Right now I'm not convinced Nance will be able to play at full potential this season. Its a tough injury to come back from both physically and mentally. The little bit I heard from the Utah scrimmage is not encouraging. (Larry played very little and was very tentative when he did play is what I'm hearing.) Ugo, (or was it Uche,) was never that same after his ACL. I know everyone's different, however...... Ugo was lights out before the injury and no where close to the same player after.
3. High learning curve for the freshmen - granted several are redshirt freshmen, but they are all going to have to adjust to life under the bright lights. I'm afraid we won't get the production out of the youngsters that we are hoping for. A quote from Barnes in the WTE recently is concerning. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of "I don't expect to play a lot this year; I may not play at all, but I'll do whatever the coaches ask me to do." Great attitude but doesn't show a lot of confidence.
Again, I'm hoping for the best this season and hopefully, I'm eating my words come February, March. However, I'm just not counting on it.

 

[TSpoke]

Let me preface this by saying that I'm not usually a doom and gloom guy. I guess the best description right now is that I've become a calloused Wyoming fan. I hope I'm wrong, but here's why I think we will once again be a disappointed fan base come January or February.
1. Cowboy Curse - It always seems that about the time we start getting our hopes up something bad happens Ex. Martinez, suspensions, departures, Nance injury, etc. Unfortunately, I think something like those listed will happen again this year. I don't know what, but something will.
2. Nance (and this kind of goes along with #1) Right now I'm not convinced Nance will be able to play at full potential this season. Its a tough injury to come back from both physically and mentally. The little bit I heard from the Utah scrimmage is not encouraging. (Larry played very little and was very tentative when he did play is what I'm hearing.) Ugo, (or was it Uche,) was never that same after his ACL. I know everyone's different, however...... Ugo was lights out before the injury and no where close to the same player after.
3. High learning curve for the freshmen - granted several are redshirt freshmen, but they are all going to have to adjust to life under the bright lights. I'm afraid we won't get the production out of the youngsters that we are hoping for. A quote from Barnes in the WTE recently is concerning. I'm paraphrasing, but he said something to the effect of "I don't expect to play a lot this year; I may not play at all, but I'll do whatever the coaches ask me to do." Great attitude but doesn't show a lot of confidence.
Again, I'm hoping for the best this season and hopefully, I'm eating my words come February, March. However, I'm just not counting on it.

In my opinion #2 is the only thing worth worrying about.
#1 is silly. There is no curse or any other supernatural vodoo on us. We have had some bad luck the last couple years but there is no reason to beleive it will continue. Might we have bad luck again, sure. Is it a part of some curse? no. Is it worth worrying about and basing your predictions on? No

#3 I never really counted on the true freshmen to contribute much. I bet one of the guards and one of the posts redshirt. The others will play sparingly but not be major contributers. I'm excited for them into the future but was never expecting much production from them this season. I do think Herndon will be a major contributer since he has had a year in the system and I beleive could become a special player.

#2 is a concern and will continue to be into the season until we see Nance beck in form. He and the coaches(the ones that know the most at this point) don't seem to be concerned. The Utah scrimmage was just the process of knocking the rust off. If he didn't feel he was capable of playing he said he would redshirt. So the fact that he isn't makes me trust that things are going fine.

Things could go wrong and we could end up dissapointed but whats the fun in beleiving that now. Come aboard the hype train its more fun up here.

 

[Cheywypoke]

All good points. I didn't mean to imply that I thought we had a curse on us. Cowboy Curse just seemed to fit better in a rhythmic headline sort of way than Snakebit Cowboys or Cowboy Bad Luck if you get my drift. And, yes, I do plan to jump aboard the hype train, but with cautious optimism.

I wish I'd read an earlier thread before a posted mine. A lot of the same point were made in that thread. I think a lot of us are cautiously optimistic.

 

[wyopig]

The only potential letdown that I see this season, short of bad luck again, is the fact that we may come out of the gate a little slow. It may take time for Larry to get back to his normal level of play, and it tends to take some time for everyone to find their rhythm and place on the team. I think that we were an NCAA tournament caliber team last year and the year before when all the bad shit happened. This team SHOULD be better than both of those teams, but there's a chance it'll take the better part of the non-conference season for them to catch their stride.

Then again, maybe we'll kick ass right out of the gate and never let up! Go Pokes!

 

[TSpoke]

The only potential letdown that I see this season, short of bad luck again, is the fact that we may come out of the gate a little slow. It may take time for Larry to get back to his normal level of play, and it tends to take some time for everyone to find their rhythm and place on the team. I think that we were an NCAA tournament caliber team last year and the year before when all the bad shit happened. This team SHOULD be better than both of those teams, but there's a chance it'll take the better part of the non-conference season for them to catch their stride.

Then again, maybe we'll kick ass right out of the gate and never let up! Go Pokes!

:thumb:

 

[TSpoke]

All good points. I didn't mean to imply that I thought we had a curse on us. Cowboy Curse just seemed to fit better in a rhythmic headline sort of way than Snakebit Cowboys or Cowboy Bad Luck if you get my drift. And, yes, I do plan to jump aboard the hype train, but with cautious optimism.

I wish I'd read an earlier thread before a posted mine. A lot of the same point were made in that thread. I think a lot of us are cautiously optimistic.

And I didn't mean to imply you literally thought we had a curse. Was just stating bad luck happens but there is no reason to beleive it always will.

 

[wyopig]

The only thing I worry about is that if we come out of the gate slow, we'll have to make a lot of hay in conference play to get an at large berth should we fail to win the conference tournament. It could be similar to the 2001-02 team. They did themselves no favors in non-conference play. They only got their at large berth, basically, because they swept Utah, who was a top 20 RPI team that year. That team even had some pretty bad losses. SDSU at home, New Mexico on the road (to an extent), at Detroit Mercy (got their asses kicked), and at Boise State when they were far from competitive.

That team came into conference play with 4 losses and 0 decent wins. To their credit, they continued to sweep UNLV and Utah and won a lot of conference games to get into the NCAA Tournament. I don't want to sweat it out on Selection Sunday with this team like we had to with the Bailey/Davis squad.

 

[WestWYOPoke]

I think a lot of us on this board are well aware of the uphill battle that Nance will have to climb to get back to his level of play in the middle of last season. However, I think there are going to be a lot of disappointed Cowboy fans (they shouldn't be, but they will) during the first few games that will be expecting the same Larry Nance as pre-injury. I don't think he will be horrible, but I think it's going to take a while to get back to his normal form.

 

[Aaron]

Here is my rebuttal:
#1 Get the fuck outta here with all this garbage. This team will shock everyone in the MWC this season

 

[kansasCowboy]

I think Nance gets 5-10 minutes on the court doing what pissed me off last year, getting 1 point and 3 rebounds here, then maybe 6 points and 3 rebounds there. You you recall Nance only had like 3-4 legit OOC games last year and didn't really make some noise until conference time. Had we seen the same Nance in OOC play last year as we did in conf play he easily would've had numbers far better than 15ppg and 8 rpg. Talking more like 21 ppg and 10 rpg. And
Because of his injury I think we will see a slightly similar look in OOC this year where Nance gets some minutes and a few buckets and rebounds here and there. But I think this year we will have more options in games where he doesnt really show, like Barnes and Herndon. And probably Lieberman and Gorski. These are the guys to watch and see how they progress during OOC. Especially against legit comp like Col, NMSU, and SMU. I think we have a chance at something special here this year. And I think baring no re injury to his knee, we see Nance get going again come conference time like we did last year.

 

[J-Rod]

My #1 concern is Nance being rushed back. Ask Chuckie Keeton and RGIII how that turns out....answer: it isn't good. They all claim to be better than ever coming off that ACL injury, and 5 minutes into their return to real game action they're limping.

I remember the USU fans this off-season....Keeton's making cuts, juking people in practice, out-running everyone blah blah blah....Tennessee opener comes and he's walking like a dog whose been hit by a truck. I hope Nance is legitimately healthy, cause so much can go wrong if he is not. Fingers crossed, I'm getting antsy....this NEEDS to be the season Wyoming finally breaks out. Not demanding a MW title, but an NCAA berth? If it doesn't happen this year with a healthy Nance, it may be awhile still.

 

[Adv8RU12]

If he's not wearing a knee brace of some sort for half the season, even if it's just the neoprene kind, someone in the training section is not doing due diligence, IMO.

 

[NowherePoke]

I think Nance gets 5-10 minutes on the court doing what pissed me off last year, getting 1 point and 3 rebounds here, then maybe 6 points and 3 rebounds there. You you recall Nance only had like 3-4 legit OOC games last year and didn't really make some noise until conference time. Had we seen the same Nance in OOC play last year as we did in conf play he easily would've had numbers far better than 15ppg and 8 rpg. Talking more like 21 ppg and 10 rpg. And
Because of his injury I think we will see a slightly similar look in OOC this year where Nance gets some minutes and a few buckets and rebounds here and there. But I think this year we will have more options in games where he doesnt really show, like Barnes and Herndon. And probably Lieberman and Gorski. These are the guys to watch and see how they progress during OOC. Especially against legit comp like Col, NMSU, and SMU. I think we have a chance at something special here this year. And I think baring no re injury to his knee, we see Nance get going again come conference time like we did last year.

Nothing personal, but I have to disagree with the Nance comments in regards to last year. Nance was pretty consistent throughout OOC and MWC play. Here are his stats

OOC: 16.3 ppg, 9.4 rpg
MWC: 14.5 ppg, 7.8 rpg

Those don't tell the story in terms of consistency, but he scored in double figures in 10 of the 13 OOC contests and each of the three that he didn't reach double figures were games the Pokes won by more than 15 points, so they weren't really relying on him down the stretch to get buckets.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out this year. Either Barnes or Williams is going to have to play significant, productive minutes right away. It's a lot to ask, but that's what it will take.

 

[WyoExpat]

All good points. I didn't mean to imply that I thought we had a curse on us. Cowboy Curse just seemed to fit better in a rhythmic headline sort of way than Snakebit Cowboys or Cowboy Bad Luck if you get my drift. And, yes, I do plan to jump aboard the hype train, but with cautious optimism.

I wish I'd read an earlier thread before a posted mine. A lot of the same point were made in that thread. I think a lot of us are cautiously optimistic.

I think that this team looks like it should have better frontcourt depth that other recent teams that fell victim to snakebite. I think that will make a difference.

I know that Coach Shyatt really spends significant time teaching players how to address the media. The quotes from Barnes suggest that he is learning those lessons fairly quickly.

Finally, someone mentioned concern about freshmen learning to play under the bright lights quickly. One thing that I particularly like is that Jason McManamen even got a start following the Martinez fight two years ago before redshirting last year. That tells me a great deal because Coach Shyatt has more confidence in players who understand the game than in raw athletes. It also means that he made important progress in key areas and has been exposed to those bright lights and they should be less distracting now.

I have the most hope about the Williams from Florida as a freshman that can add immediate, frontcourt depth because he is supposed to have a well-developed defensive game and is now simply trying to develop an offensive skillset to match his defense.

 

[kansasCowboy]

I think Nance gets 5-10 minutes on the court doing what pissed me off last year, getting 1 point and 3 rebounds here, then maybe 6 points and 3 rebounds there. You you recall Nance only had like 3-4 legit OOC games last year and didn't really make some noise until conference time. Had we seen the same Nance in OOC play last year as we did in conf play he easily would've had numbers far better than 15ppg and 8 rpg. Talking more like 21 ppg and 10 rpg. And
Because of his injury I think we will see a slightly similar look in OOC this year where Nance gets some minutes and a few buckets and rebounds here and there. But I think this year we will have more options in games where he doesnt really show, like Barnes and Herndon. And probably Lieberman and Gorski. These are the guys to watch and see how they progress during OOC. Especially against legit comp like Col, NMSU, and SMU. I think we have a chance at something special here this year. And I think baring no re injury to his knee, we see Nance get going again come conference time like we did last year.

Nothing personal, but I have to disagree with the Nance comments in regards to last year. Nance was pretty consistent throughout OOC and MWC play. Here are his stats

OOC: 16.3 ppg, 9.4 rpg
MWC: 14.5 ppg, 7.8 rpg

Those don't tell the story in terms of consistency, but he scored in double figures in 10 of the 13 OOC contests and each of the three that he didn't reach double figures were games the Pokes won by more than 15 points, so they weren't really relying on him down the stretch to get buckets.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out this year. Either Barnes or Williams is going to have to play significant, productive minutes right away. It's a lot to ask, but that's what it will take.

We had 13 OOC games. In 6 of those games (almost half) Nance avgd 8.8 points and 8.3 reb per game. In the other 7 games he broke he maintained his 16 and 8 avg three times and broke out the rest of the games. Giving his avg for those 7 games at 22.7 points and 10.7 reb per game.

Going with what I said before, if he was consistant for all 13 games, he probably would've avged 21 ppg and 10 rpg.
His scoring ranged from 3 points to 38 points. His rebounds from 3 to 13.
This year I see his OOC playing being that of those 6 subpar games.

 

[NowherePoke]

I think Nance gets 5-10 minutes on the court doing what pissed me off last year, getting 1 point and 3 rebounds here, then maybe 6 points and 3 rebounds there. You you recall Nance only had like 3-4 legit OOC games last year and didn't really make some noise until conference time. Had we seen the same Nance in OOC play last year as we did in conf play he easily would've had numbers far better than 15ppg and 8 rpg. Talking more like 21 ppg and 10 rpg. And
Because of his injury I think we will see a slightly similar look in OOC this year where Nance gets some minutes and a few buckets and rebounds here and there. But I think this year we will have more options in games where he doesnt really show, like Barnes and Herndon. And probably Lieberman and Gorski. These are the guys to watch and see how they progress during OOC. Especially against legit comp like Col, NMSU, and SMU. I think we have a chance at something special here this year. And I think baring no re injury to his knee, we see Nance get going again come conference time like we did last year.

Nothing personal, but I have to disagree with the Nance comments in regards to last year. Nance was pretty consistent throughout OOC and MWC play. Here are his stats

OOC: 16.3 ppg, 9.4 rpg
MWC: 14.5 ppg, 7.8 rpg

Those don't tell the story in terms of consistency, but he scored in double figures in 10 of the 13 OOC contests and each of the three that he didn't reach double figures were games the Pokes won by more than 15 points, so they weren't really relying on him down the stretch to get buckets.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out this year. Either Barnes or Williams is going to have to play significant, productive minutes right away. It's a lot to ask, but that's what it will take.

We had 13 OOC games. In 6 of those games (almost half) Nance avgd 8.8 points and 8.3 reb per game. In the other 7 games he broke he maintained his 16 and 8 avg three times and broke out the rest of the games. Giving his avg for those 7 games at 22.7 points and 10.7 reb per game.

Going with what I said before, if he was consistant for all 13 games, he probably would've avged 21 ppg and 10 rpg.
His scoring ranged from 3 points to 38 points. His rebounds from 3 to 13.
This year I see his OOC playing being that of those 6 subpar games.

That's not what you said. You said that if he played with the same consistency OOC as he did in MWC play he would have averaged 21/10 OOC. He didn't average anywhere close to that in MWC play (in fact, he never scored over 20 points in a MWC game) and he wasn't any more consistent in MWC play than he was in OOC.

Using your metric, in Larry's worst 6 MWC games (also out of 13), he averaged 8.3 ppg and 6.8 rpg. Very similar to his worst 6 OOC games (in fact slightly worse, just like his overall numbers).

I agree that we will likely see reduced production from Larry OOC this year, but there isn't any evidence that Larry's performance was weaker or less consistent OOC last year than it was in MWC play (your original comment). Larry's production distribution is pretty typical. Very few players are truly consistent.

 

[stymeman]

the way i see it is to limit Larry's minutes during the non conf portion of the schedule and then we'll try to ride him in the conference season, as I see we have weapons all over and Shyatt has to know he's gotta coach the whole team not just a certain part of it....i think we'll be just fine

 

[WestWYOPoke]

If he's not wearing a knee brace of some sort for half the season, even if it's just the neoprene kind, someone in the training section is not doing due diligence, IMO.

I'd be very surprised if he isn't wearing a Donjoy brace for the entirety of the season.

 

[kansasCowboy]

I think Nance gets 5-10 minutes on the court doing what pissed me off last year, getting 1 point and 3 rebounds here, then maybe 6 points and 3 rebounds there. You you recall Nance only had like 3-4 legit OOC games last year and didn't really make some noise until conference time. Had we seen the same Nance in OOC play last year as we did in conf play he easily would've had numbers far better than 15ppg and 8 rpg. Talking more like 21 ppg and 10 rpg. And
Because of his injury I think we will see a slightly similar look in OOC this year where Nance gets some minutes and a few buckets and rebounds here and there. But I think this year we will have more options in games where he doesnt really show, like Barnes and Herndon. And probably Lieberman and Gorski. These are the guys to watch and see how they progress during OOC. Especially against legit comp like Col, NMSU, and SMU. I think we have a chance at something special here this year. And I think baring no re injury to his knee, we see Nance get going again come conference time like we did last year.

Nothing personal, but I have to disagree with the Nance comments in regards to last year. Nance was pretty consistent throughout OOC and MWC play. Here are his stats

OOC: 16.3 ppg, 9.4 rpg
MWC: 14.5 ppg, 7.8 rpg

Those don't tell the story in terms of consistency, but he scored in double figures in 10 of the 13 OOC contests and each of the three that he didn't reach double figures were games the Pokes won by more than 15 points, so they weren't really relying on him down the stretch to get buckets.

It will be interesting to see how it plays out this year. Either Barnes or Williams is going to have to play significant, productive minutes right away. It's a lot to ask, but that's what it will take.

We had 13 OOC games. In 6 of those games (almost half) Nance avgd 8.8 points and 8.3 reb per game. In the other 7 games he broke he maintained his 16 and 8 avg three times and broke out the rest of the games. Giving his avg for those 7 games at 22.7 points and 10.7 reb per game.

Going with what I said before, if he was consistant for all 13 games, he probably would've avged 21 ppg and 10 rpg.
His scoring ranged from 3 points to 38 points. His rebounds from 3 to 13.
This year I see his OOC playing being that of those 6 subpar games.

That's not what you said. You said that if he played with the same consistency OOC as he did in MWC play he would have averaged 21/10 OOC. He didn't average anywhere close to that in MWC play (in fact, he never scored over 20 points in a MWC game) and he wasn't any more consistent in MWC play than he was in OOC.

Using your metric, in Larry's worst 6 MWC games (also out of 13), he averaged 8.3 ppg and 6.8 rpg. Very similar to his worst 6 OOC games (in fact slightly worse, just like his overall numbers).

I agree that we will likely see reduced production from Larry OOC this year, but there isn't any evidence that Larry's performance was weaker or less consistent OOC last year than it was in MWC play (your original comment). Larry's production distribution is pretty typical. Very few players are truly consistent.

Okay, you got me. I must've confused myself going back and forth from OOC thoughts to conf thoughts and visa versa. Nonetheless, I think he is limited in OOC this year, we get Herndon and Barnes more experience and then work him in to being a threat in conf play.

 

[BackHarlowRoad]

I don't think we will underachieve. We are picked to finish 6th in the conference.

For a team that many of us feel will finish top 3 and make the tourney, then 6th is A LOT of leg room.