Newly ranked Aggies welcome Wyoming to the Spectrum – Cache Valley Daily

LOGAN — A day after the culmination of Utah State’s 14-1 start to the season resulted in long-awaited recognition in the AP and Coaches Top 25 Polls (and some individual awards for two of its stars), the Aggies must get back to work. Or, as head coach Danny Sprinkle put it after the win over No. 17 Colorado State on Saturday, the “rent is due” again. This time, the Wyoming Cowboys will be coming to town, bringing their own set of challenges for the Aggies.

“We know the opponent coming in here. They have our attention. They have our respect,” Sprinkle said.

Wyoming doesn’t bring much acclaim with it, sitting at 8-7 and ranking barely in the top 200 of the NET and several other rankings. What the Cowboys will bring is a cast of young and/or transfer players (attributes that put them on par with the Aggies) looking to find their way in a tough conference.

Each of the Cowboys’ top three players — Sam Griffin, Akuel Kot and Mason Walters — are transfers with a couple other rotation players (Oleg Kojenets and Kobe Newton) being transfers as well. Heck, third-leading scorer Cam Manyawu and reserve guard Kael Combs are freshmen so of the nine players that have seen consistent time for Wyoming this year, seven are newcomers to its rotation. Only Caden Powell and Brendan Wenzel saw notable minutes for the Cowboys in 2022-23.

These transfers were far from nobodies, though. Griffin averaged 14.4 points per game in his previous three seasons, with Kot and Walters being four-year stars at the Division II and NAIA level, respectively (in fact, both received NABC All-American honors at some point in those seasons).

Walters only recently returned from an offseason thumb injury that held him out of Wyoming’s first 10 games, allowing him to contribute alongside Griffin and Kot who have been the leading scorers for the team. 

Having the interior post presence of Walters will only continue to make the dynamic pairing of Griffin and Kot more dangerous. The two are both in the top 11 of scoring in the Mountain West (only Nevada and Boise State have as many top scorers in the conference on the same team) with Griffin ranking second in scoring at 18.6 per game. The two both shoot north of 40 percent from three on just shy of 10 attempts combined. And that shooting is a major part of why the Cowboys rank 14th in the nation in team 3-point percentage (38.8).

“Our guys know that (Wyoming) has a couple players that can really go and get it,” Sprinkle said. “They can really score the basketball.”

Wyoming’s 3-point shooting is elite, though remarkably it’s not even performing up to its full potential. Griffin and Kot are obviously doing fine, as is the freshman Newton who’s making 53.7 percent of triples on decent volume off the bench. But Walters and Wenzel are both shooting under 30 percent from deep despite solid records as shooters. It can make the Cowboys a dangerous foe as any one of five players has a track record of being able to get red-hot from three.

What’s strange about the Cowboys, in relation to 3-point shooting, is a lack of awareness in strength and a similar lack of awareness in weakness. Wyoming is among the best in the country in outside shooting but barely use that shooting as it ranks 322nd in attempts per game from distance. Conversely, the Cowboys are 301st in field goal percentage on shots at the rim, but are 56th in rate of attempts for those shots.

The aggression toward getting to the rim, even with the lack of results when they get there, isn’t all for naught. It leads to a ton of fouls and a lot of free throws. Wyoming averages nearly 23 attempts from the free-throw line per game, good for 42nd in the country, and make a solid 75.6 percent of those attempts.

“Where I think they really get people is they do a great job of getting the ball to the free-throw line. They’re very kind of simple in what but they’re very effective,” Sprinkle said. “We have to be ready to guard without fouling and guard for the whole clock like we did a couple times on Saturday night.”

For as much as talk about whether more 3-pointers or better finishing, combined with Wyoming’s good free throw rates, might be interesting, that isn’t affecting the team as much as its worst enemy: themselves. The Cowboys rank near the bottom of the country in turnover rate, 349th, with nearly 19 percent of its possessions (borderline one in five) ending without even an attempt at a field goal. Griffin, Kot and Walters make a great scoring trio, but also combine for 8.6 turnovers by themselves (for reference, the top three scorers for Utah State combine for 6.2 turnovers between them). This is something that should clash well (from a USU perspective) with an Aggie defense that ranks 68th in forcing turnovers.

 

Projected Starters

Utah State (13-1)

• G – Darius Brown (6-2, Sr.) – 10.5 points | 3.7 rebounds | 7.3 assists
• G – Mason Falslev (6-3, Fr.) – 12.0 points | 4.7 rebounds | 2.9 assists
• G – Ian Martinez (6-3, Jr.) – 12.8 points | 3.2 rebounds | 1.4 assists
• F – Great Osobor (6-8, Jr.) – 18.5 points | 9.5 rebounds | 2.7 assists
• C – Isaac Johnson (7-0, So.) – 6.3 points | 2.9 rebounds | 0.7 assists

Wyoming (8-7)

F – Caden Powell (6-10, So.) – 7.9 points | 6.0 rebounds | 1.6 assists

Injuries

• G — Akuel Kot (6-2, Sr.) — 15.0 points | 2.3 rebounds | 2.2 assists
• G – Sam Griffin (6-3, Sr.) – 18.6 points | 3.8 rebounds | 3.6 assists
• G –  Brendan Wenzel (6-7, Sr.) – 7.6 points | 5.2 rebounds | 1.7 assists
• F – Mason Walters (6-9, Sr.) – 11.6 points | 3.8 rebounds | 1.8 assists
• F – Caden Powell (6-10, So.) – 7.9 points | 6.0 rebounds | 1.6 assists

Injuries