The Wyoming Cowboys Play For A Championship [VIDEO]
A champion will be crowned tonight, as the Wyoming Cowboys host Coastal Carolina in the finale of the College Basketball Invitational in Laramie.
In the best-of-three format, both teams have won a game on their home court. The Chanticleers won Monday night’s series opener 91-81. The Cowboys followed with a bounce back 81-57 victory in game two on Wednesday night.
That sets up this “winner take all” game at 5 p.m. from the Arena-Auditorium.
This will be the last game in a Cowboy uniform for senior Jason McManamen. The Torrington (WY) native has certainly made an impact on the program. He leaves as the school’s all-time leader in career three-point field goals made. He also surpassed the 1000-point in his career mark earlier this month and with 1,028, it’s the fourth-most points by a Wyoming native.
McManamen was asked about playing the Chants a third time in five days; trying to end his senior year with a championship and more.
Wyoming head coach Allen Edwards says with a quick turnaround and a common opponent, he’s not sure how much either team will change from Wednesday’s Cowboy victory.
“The only other change we made (Wednesday night) was putting JJ (Justin James) on No. 5 to give him more length versus (Jeremy) Lieberman and Cody (Kelley). Outside of that, I just thought our effort and energy was better on the defensive end of the floor, and I thought we did a better job of rebounding.”
Those two pieces look to be key again tonight for Wyoming.
In an interesting note, the Pokes have had 10 players score at least one point in both games of the series. Meanwhile, Coastal Carolina had players score in double figures during their win Monday night. Only two (10 points each) were in double digits Wednesday night.
This is also the first postseason championship game in a national tournament for the Cowboys since they lost in the NIT title game in 1986. The last time UW finished a season with a victory was in 1980 before conference tournaments came about.
The game is set for a 5 p.m. tip-off. You can listen to the game on FM 95.1 in Laramie or on a local radio affiliate of the Cowboy Sports Network. The game is also being televised on ESPNU again.