Rich's sometimes disjointed rambling

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...