DAYTON, Ohio — It was an invitation to fail, yet another example of how Mountain West basketball gets no respect. After winning 25 times to prove themselves worthy of the Big Dance, earning a bid to the NCAA Tournament for only the second time since 2002, these Wyoming Cowboys not only had to beat five players on the court from Indiana, but Jack, Diane and 8,000 rowdies from Hoosier Nation.
“I’ve been in some loud gyms … (so) loud you can’t hear yourself think,” Wyoming coach Jeff Linder said Tuesday, after his Cowboys lost 66-58 to Indiana.
Back in 2015, Linder was an assistant at Boise State when the Broncos played Dayton on its home floor in the First Four of this same tourney. That wasn’t easy. So one of the best coaches in the biz tried as best he could to steel the Cowboys for the challenge of picking a fight with the Hoosiers in a sea of red. “We weren’t going to use that as an excuse,” Linder said.
Out in the parking lot on an evening with the promise of spring, well-lubricated Indiana fans were singing enthusiastically off-key to “Jack and Diane” by John Mellencamp prior to a late-night tipoff. The selection committee, which knows TV audiences from blueblood conferences butter its bread, gave the Hoosiers the gift of an overwhelming home-court advantage for this play-in game. The distance from the Indiana campus to the University of Dayton Arena is 167 miles, or approximately the same drive folks in Wyoming routinely make on a weekend morning to stock up on baby wipes and Cheetos at Sam’s Club.
‘It was surreal. It was almost like a home game one more time,” said forward Trayce Jackson-Davis, who led Indiana with 29 points, with each of his power moves to the hoop celebrated with a full-throat roar from Hoosier Nation.
What happened in the opening half, which ended with the Hoosiers ahead 30-25, could be thoroughly enjoyed only if you hold a bitter grudge against basketball. “One of those ugly games,” Indiana coach Mike Woodson said.
This slugfest began with all the subtlety of a hockey fight, as both teams seemed more intent on proving their brute strength than displaying a deft shooting touch. It wasn’t pretty, but definitely intense. Scratching and clawing for every inch of floor space, bumping and grinding for rebounds, clinking and clanking jump shots.
Graham Ike, who led Wyoming with nearly 20 points per game during the regular season, was unable to buy a basket until 6 minutes, 48 seconds prior to intermission, when his layup and one tied the score at 13-13.
The most bizarre moment? Linder was slapped with a technical foul late in the first half for shouting at guard Drake Jeffries, one of his own players, to quit griping about bad calls. “I was yelling at Drake to shut up and get down the floor,” Linder said. “It’s the first time I’ve gotten a tech for yelling at my own guy.”
The muscle flexed by Indiana eventually took a heavy toll on Wyoming, which got bullied in the lane and had trouble keeping Indiana off the offensive glass. “We just kept grinding,” said Woodson, whose Hoosiers now take their 21-13 record and see if they can bully No. 5 seed St. Mary’s.
When Indiana took a 49-40 lead with 8:58 remaining in the game, the Cowboys leaned harder on Ike and senior guard Hunter Maldonado, two proud Coloradans that found a hoops home in Laramie. Ike recovered from his opening jitters to finish with 17 points and nine rebounds. Maldonado led Wyoming with 21 points, but also with an uncharacteristic 10 turnovers.
“I tried to force it a little more than I probably should have, especially knowing that if I did slow down, we were basically scoring every almost every time,” Maldonado said. “I think just in the sense of trying to force almost making the home-run play instead of taking singles was what led to those 10 turnovers.”
After Jackson-Davis slammed home a lob pass sweetly teed up by senior point guard Xavier Johnson to put a don’t-mess-with-us exclamation point on a 54-47 Indiana lead with 3:55 remaining in the game, it was rag time for Cowboy Joe to pack up and head home.
Despite the loss, Linder said: “I think it’s just going to allow us to take another step, a big step as a program. And I’m just really excited to see where that goes.”
