Rich's sometimes disjointed rambling

If a team shoots well, its chances of success increase considerably. That's frickin' brilliant, if I do say so myself. I need to start posting on the local sports message boards so I can test my sports knowledge with former junior varsity players who actually believe they can coach better than the current coach and school donors who automatically know more because they donate more. This week for the Wyoming basketball teams, shooting well was the key in wins over Air Force. The Cowboys broke an eight-game slide by hitting 9 of 23 3-pointers and playing solid defense. Now, 9 of 23 3-pointers isn't Earth shaking, but for the 'Pokes, that wasn't too bad. Actually, it was pretty darn good. "As simple as it sounds, we made some shots tonight," Wyoming coach Heath Schroyer said after the win over the Falcons. "When you make nine threes, that is going to give you a chance to win." Earth-shaking stuff, huh. For some reason, the Earth seems to shake in

As I put my watch up to my ear, I expect to hear click, click, click, as each second moves forward. Kind of like my current days as a sportswriter ... click, click, click. For some reason, though, the watch is silent as it continues time. Again, kind of like my current days of operating Wyoming Sports.org. Yikes, cliche' overload here. The simple fact is my sports website is probably on its last leg. I say probably because in two weeks I will begin a new job as news copy editor/designer for the Wyoming Tribune Eagle in Cheyenne. Not only will I not have the time to cover local sporting events in Laramie, I can see my new employers likely not wanting me to compete against the WTE's fine sports staff. It makes perfect sense and I totally understand. When the position opened a while back, with my wife's blessing and encouragement, I decided to apply for the job. Friday night I was offered the position and I accepted. I do admit it will be a little strange not being a sportswr

The Wyoming Cowboys have a little break this week, with their only action Saturday at Utah. Good for the Cowboys, bad for the rest of the Mountain West Conference. As a seven-game losing skid would attest, playing against the Cowboys lately does good things for a team and individual players. New Mexico and BYU , both already ranked in the Top 20 in the various national polls, earned big wins over Wyoming last week. The reward: The Lobos have moved up to 10 th in the AP poll and the Cougars have advanced three spots to 13 th . BYU's Jimmer Fredette , who scored 22 points against the 'Pokes on Saturday, was named this week's MWC Player of the Week. He also had 36 points in the win against CSU on Thursday. OK, that helped. It was also Fredette's fifth POW honors. Pencil him down for player of the year. The way things have gone in league play this year, facing Wyoming usually gets you player of week honors. For the past three weeks, players who have faced Wyoming ha

If I was Craig Thompson, commissioner of the Mountain West Conference, I might be sweating at this time. The news broke that the Pac -10 was looking at the possibility of expanding. One of the favorites for the move was Utah, along with Colorado. BYU would be a no go because the school doesn' t play on Sundays for religious reasons. But if CU moves to the Pac -10, BYU could go to the Big 12. It's a dominoes effect that could spell trouble, regardless, for the MWC . Here's a link on an opinion piece of the possible moves recently in the Sporting News.

I'd be pulling your chain if I said that I didn't see this coming, but sophomore A.J. Davis has left the Cowboy basketball team. Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer announced the move on Friday in a short press release -- they are always short when a player leaves a program. The release stated that Davis left the program for personal reasons. “We wish A.J. all the best in the future,” said Schroyer . The quote of course is what all coaches say in this type of release ... just fill in the blank with the name. That's fine. What else is the coach supposed to say? Davis, a sophomore from Columbus, Ohio, had played in all 22 games this season. He was averaging 10.0 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 0.7 assists per game. In Mountain West Conference games, Davis was averaging 4.4 points, 1.4 rebounds, 0.9 steals and 0.4 assists. My money is on the latter of his season stats as to the reason for Davis' departure. On Wednesday against UNLV , Davis stole the opening tip and to

One of my favorite websites, The Onion, has updated its site and is looking good. To kick off the new Onion, what would be more enjoyable than making fun of Packers fans. So, here's my Onion clip of the week: Drunk Packers fan

It was understandable if, despite your allegiance to the Cowgirl basketball team, you decided to sit Saturday's game out. After all , it was against Air Force, a team the Cowgirls have only lost to twice in their program history. You're thinking, we'll just wait for next Saturday's game against rival CSU . Well, by now you know that by missing the 98-37 Cowgirl slaughter, you missed somewhat of a historic game. Here's what you missed. MWC games only records set: 1) Field goal percentage (.775, 37-for-49 shooting) 2. Assists in a single game (34). 3. Points scored (98) 4. Hillary Carlson -- shooting percentage (10 of 11, 909). MWC games only records tied: 1) 3-point field goals made (20) The Cowgirls 37 field goals are also the second most in a conference game and the 20 3-pointers broke a Wyoming record of 14 set against Air Force in 2004 and Dakota State at the Wyoming Shootout earlier this season. Obviously, the biggest thing about the win, Wyoming coach Joe

Losing close matches often doesn't reflect the final team score in collegiate wrestling and that was the case as No. 4 Oklahoma State rolled past the Wyoming Cowboys 31-3 in front of a record wrestling crowd of 2.566 Friday night in the Arena-Auditorium. Oklahoma State won three one-point matches, five (including one in overtime) bouts by three points or less and another by four points. Yet, the final score was lopsided. to say the least, Wyoming head coach Mark Branch, a former All-American, national champion and assistant coach at Oklahoma State, wasn' t happy with just wrestling close. “The crowd was great, the band was great, the cheerleaders were great and we weren ’t great,” Branch said. “That was the difference. We were OK. If I was OK with close losses, then I would be real happy, but I’m not OK with close losses.” For more on the match, check back later on Wyoming Sports.org. --- No. 4 Oklahoma State 31, Wyoming 3 125 -- No. 10 Chris Notte ( OSU ) dec . No. 11 Michae

Evidently, when a basketball team struggles at the free-throw line, it is only a concern when the team loses. In close losses to TCU and New Mexico, the Cowboys struggled at the line. Looking back, if there is one thing that cost them the wins, it was probably poor free-throw shooting. On Wednesday, if the Cowboys had shot free throws like they did against TCU and New Mexico, they would have likely been up by double digits down the stretch, rather than the game going down to the wire in the 75-69 victory. "It's kind of like how it was the last few games. If we had made our free throws, those would have been games that we would have had wins," Wyoming sophomore Adam Waddell said. They were head scratching, mind boggling bad at times on Wednesday at the charity stripe. Free throws were not free. Wyoming had to hit 7 of 9 down the stretch just to get over the .500 mark, finally settling on 23 of 44. Forty four attempts were more like it, as Wyoming is one of the top team

The good thing about a blog is I can come back and change things at any time. So here it is, my NFL championship predictions. The Saints and Colts in the Super Bowl. It's about one-half hour before the Colts and Jets face off, as the original timeline of me writing this blog will attest to that. Now, I can come back later tonight and change my mind and the timeline will be the same. Thanks Blogger. Now that I have that in your head, you're wondering did he really pick the Colts and the Saints? If you listened to Sportsline Live on Friday, that's what I said. I also said I wouldn't be shocked if it was the Vikings and Jets. I'm covering my behind on this a bit, I admit, but, like they say, "On any given Sunday..." I pick the Saints for one main reason -- they are home in the Superdome . If this game was in the Metrodome , I'd pick the Vikings, as much as that pains a Packers fan to say. This could be an offensive shoooout , to say the least. With that

Saturday's Mountain West Conference video action from The Mtn.

With three home games in their first four, the Wyoming Cowboys needed to hold serve to get out to a decent Mountain West Conference start. Instead, the Cowboys lost two of the three home games and are off to a 1-3 MWC beginning. The reward for the start? Improved play, head coach Heath Schroyer said. Reality, however, has the Cowboys still just 1-3 and BYU on tap Wednesday night in Provo. BYU of course, is now the lone Top 25 conference team and arguably now the best team in the league. Did I say the game was in Provo? Yeah, I did. “We are getting better," Schroyer said. "A month ago, we wouldn ’t have been in this game. If we can continue to make strides like we have, we’re going to be a tough team the rest of this season." Schroyer is right. The Cowboys are better than they were a month ago. The only problem, though, is the 'Pokes were pretty bad a month ago or so. Losses to South Dakota State, Hampton and Monmouth will attest to that. Many Wyoming fans will

I'm still not complaining. Well, kind of not complaining. OK, I'm complaining a little bit. I, along with about a zillion other Packers' fans, saw a facemask by the Cardinals' Michael Adams on the final play of Arizona's wild 51-45 overtime win over Green Bay Sunday in the NFC Wild Card Playoffs. Apparently, the officials didn't see it and the talking heads who, when not looking in the mirror, analyzed the game afterwards and didn't see it. Oh yeah, the Cardinals fans did not see the facemask either. First of all, the Packers didn't get cheated with the missed call. It happens. They lost the game because they made too many costly mistakes and couldn't stop the Arizona offense. Rated the No. 2 defense in the NFL, their performance was perplexing, to say the least. But check out the picture by Matt York of AP Images. Somebody please tell me that his hand is not on the facemask . In the close-up video of the play, it shows that Aaron Rodgers' head

Here's what others were saying about the Wyoming men's and women's basketball matchups with San Diego State on Saturday. Wait a minute. One of the others was me for SignOnSanDiego, the web site for the San Diego Union-Tribune. For the past three or four years I have freelanced for the Union Tribune for the UW - SDSU game in the A-A. Note the comments on the bottom of the page from angry Aztecs fans. I guess losing to little Wyoming is about the end of the world. Sports fans are always so angry. Time to "Lighten up Francis" (quote from Stripes). Here's the link to that story: Cowboys corral SDSU Here's also the link from the local story for the Cowgirls-Lady Aztecs game: Lady Aztecs rout Cowgirls .

To say A.J. Davis has struggled with his outside shot since joining the Cowboys as a true freshman last season would be ... well, somewhat of an understatement. Going into Saturday's game with Adams State, Davis had hit three 3-pointers in 44 attempts. This season, he was 1 of 22. On Saturday, Davis was a perfect 2 of 2, as he went on to score a career-high 26 points. After the game, Davis grinned when asked about his outside shooting. Despite his previous numbers, he said he has to just keep plugging away. "Confidence is just getting into the gym and shooting more," Davis said. "Coach has said to just shoot it and don't worry about it." Evidently, shooting is contagious. The Cowboys hit 9 of 25 3-point attempts in the game, a season high. Going into the contest, Wyoming was hovering at about the 21-percent range from the land of three. Senior Ryan Dermody hit 4 of 8 3- pointers en route to his season-high 19 points. Dermody said that shooting is big o