Wyoming
BYU basketball: Cougars rely on their defense to throttle Wyoming at the Delta Center
Whenever BYU and former conference rival Wyoming tangle in any sport, the results are never all that pretty for either side.
So when BYU star Richie Saunders collided with Wyoming’s Jordan Nesbitt early in Saturday night’s nonconference basketball game in front of 11,217 at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City and got the worst of it, suffering a bloody and lacerated lip that would keep him out the remainder of the contest, it appeared it was going to be another one of those classic Cougars-Cowboys contests.
BYU’s defense, led by specialist Mawot Mag, a seldom-used transfer from Rutgers, had other ideas.
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Not known for its defensive prowess in its previous nine games, BYU upped the intensity on that end of the floor almost the entire 40 minutes and ran away with a 68-49 win to improve to 8-2 and push its winning streak over Wyoming to 15 games.
The 49 points tied 5-5 Wyoming’s lowest output of the season, the other coming in a 96-49 loss at Texas Tech.
“It was a good win. I thought our defensive execution was outstanding. They are a team that gets to the line quite a bit,” said BYU coach Kevin Young.
““I thought we forced them into some shots that they are not comfortable taking, then kept them off the free-throw line. That was really the key to the game. I am happy with the defensive execution more than anything.”
With BYU leading 4-0 and Saunders heading to the locker room with head athletic trainer Rob Ramos, Young turned to Dawson Baker and then Mag, and the duo displayed the depth that the Cougars will need to rely on all the more when they get into Big 12 play.
Young called Mag’s performance “inspiring” and said it was the difference in the game. The graduate transfer who was raised in Australia had season-highs across the board: 11 points (on 4 of 5 shooting), three rebounds in 23 minutes.
“I just told the team that it was (huge),” Young said. “He has been dealt a tough hand here, coming back off an injury and he just hasn’t found his footing, and I have not given him much opportunity to find his footing, so he has had to grind through stuff as a guy who has played major minutes at a major college basketball level and has had a great attitude and it was just really inspiring what he did.”
Wyoming would appear to be rather average by Mountain West standards, but consider that the Cowboys lost their last three games by a combined seven points, and on Dec. 4 in Logan, they pushed undefeated Utah State to the brink before the Aggies won, 70-67.
Offensively, the Cowboys are on the explosive side despite playing at a slower pace than most opponents BYU has faced this season. Obi Agbim scored a game-high 21 points, but no other Cowboys reached double figures.
“His defense was tremendous,” Young said of Mag, “and they were daring him to shoot shots. He took good shots and made them (3 of 4 from 3-point range for the career 27% 3-point shooter). “That kid he was guarding out there is a good player. I thought our guys rallied around it and it was a cool moment for our team.”
What was the key to Mag’s success?
“Just staying ready. Coach always tries to tell us if things are not going your way, just stay ready,” Mag said. “It is a long season and we have a lot of talent.
“There can only be a certain amount of people on the floor. Just stay ready and get better every day and just wait your turn because you never know.”
With freshman Egor Demin watching from the bench for the second straight game with a knee contusion and Saunders exiting early, it fell upon Trevin Knell and Baker to pick up the scoring slack, and that’s what they did.
Knell went 6 for 7 for 15 points in 28 minutes, while Baker had 11 points, five rebounds and two assists. Young said Saunders “will continue to be evaluated” and didn’t have any other details on the injury that drew blood and silenced the Delta Center crowd for a good minute before he was helped to his feet.
“Richie’s injury was unfortunate, but everybody stepped up, including myself and Eli (Crawford),” Mag said. “I am just glad we came out here and got the W.”
Added Baker: “No matter who it is, when someone goes down it is just our instincts as brothers to get behind each other and push forward and that’s what we did tonight. I am really excited and proud of the guys.”
That BYU would get its eighth win wasn’t really in question early as the Cougars jumped out to an 11-0 lead, but Young’s squad seemed to lose interest a bit after building a 30-16 advantage with 7:20 remaining in the first half and only scored four points on their last 10 possessions of the half, allowing Wyoming to scratch back and make it 34-25 at halftime.
BYU scored 27 points in the first 10 minutes of the first half and just seven points in the last 10 minutes of the half. Credit the Cowboys for dictating the tempo the last 10 minutes of the first half.
“That last four-minute stretch (of the first half) wasn’t great for us offensively,” Young acknowledged. “Weird combinations, probably poor subbing on my part. I will have to look at the film to see exactly what (happened). We couldn’t find a rhythm, execution was poor.”
The second half was a different story. With Knell and Mag drilling 3-pointers, the Cougars quickly regained control and had a 56-37 lead with just under 10 minutes remaining on a Baker layup.
“Outside of the first play of the half, I thought we executed extremely well in the second half,” Young said. “I don’t think the stats will show it. How many layups did we miss at the basket? It felt like a bunch after running some really good offense. I thought the execution was much better, though.”
BYU took much better care of the ball in the second half after committing eight turnovers in the first half. The Cougars finished with 13, but a few of those came in garbage time.
They adjusted well to an NBA arena as well, making 9 of 20 3-point attempts (45%) and shooting 52% from the field, despite the plethora of missed bunnies that Young referenced.
BYU’s bench outscored Wyoming’s bench 37-14 and the Cougars enjoyed a 24-18 advantage in the paint.
“We gotta continue to compete against some of the power conference teams to continue to learn about ourselves, but I think our defensive identity particularly in the last two games is really starting to come together,” Young said.
“Offensively we are playing the way I would like us to play, for the most part. … We are one game away from Big 12 play so we gotta do it in short order, but so far we are getting closer.”
The Cougars’ next game is Friday against Florida A&M at the Marriott Center.
CASPER, Wyo. — High school athletics in Wyoming could see some drastic changes in the coming years following legislative changes to the state’s education budget, the Wyoming High School Activities Association recently announced in a statement.
According to the WHSAA, Wyoming school districts are facing a projected $3.9 million shortfall in activities funding, forcing officials to consider significant cuts to high school sports and extracurricular programs.
The WHSAA shared details regarding a new “silo” funding model implemented by the Legislature, stating that the recalibrated block grant model reduced funding for student activities and extra-duty responsibilities from $46.3 million to $42.4 million, an approximately 8.4% decrease statewide.
WHSAA Commissioner Trevor Wilson said the restructuring also restricts district access to an additional $76.2 million in previously flexible funding.
“A significant portion of the [April 28 WHSAA Board of Directors] meeting was dedicated to discussing the projected funding shortfall,” Wilson wrote.
The WHSAA is weighing several strategies to address rising costs with fewer resources. Proposed changes include eliminating regional tournaments and reducing the number of teams qualifying for state events from eight to four; limiting wrestling to two classes and restricting track and field state participants to the top 16 marks; making cuts to soccer, indoor track and field, Nordic and Alpine skiing, swimming and diving, spring golf and tennis; and reducing in-person speech and debate events by half and centrally locating All-State Music events to minimize travel. The board also recommended increasing gate admission or implementing student participation fees to offset costs.
While the WHSAA release states that no plans have been finalized and the various changes are currently just possibilities, Natrona County School District 1 Board of Trustees member Mary Schmidt criticized the WHSAA’s handling of the news at Monday’s board meeting.
“I take some issues with this, [including] the sheer fact that we as Board of Trustees members have not talked about that at all,” Schmidt said. “It is not our intent and it has not been brought to us to cut our athletics or activities budget for the upcoming school year. … I take issue with them picking sports and getting the community upset and ginning them up to be upset that this is all going to be cut when that hasn’t been discussed.”
Later in the meeting, Superintendent Angela Hensley clarified that Natrona County School District 1’s athletics and activities budget saw a reduction of roughly $550,000 in the coming year’s budget, but said the local school district does not plan to cut any sports.
“Thank you, Trustee Schmidt, for saying this, because I think people are wondering — we are not planning to cut athletics and activities for next year,” Hensley said. “We do have to take a look at our entire budget as we have talked about, as we learn more about these new rules that come in.”
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Republished with permission from Wyoming News Now, a TV news outlet covering the Cheyenne and Casper areas.
Cheyenne City Council has introduced a temporary moratorium, or pause, on new data center construction.
“The end goal is to actually have regulations in place, to have really heavy public involvement with this with data centers,” said Councilman Mark Moody.
The proposed ordinance is not a permanent ban on data centers and would not affect data centers currently under construction.
Councilman Moody says this is a bipartisan issue.
“I just want to make this clear, I’m not against data centers. We do need them from a national security perspective,” he said.
He said there needs to be more public input and regulations regarding data centers in Cheyenne.
The ordinance would require city staff to study data center impacts such as electricity usage, electricity tariffs, closed-loop cooling systems, groundwater impacts, agricultural impacts, and land value.
Cheyenne LEADS, the economic development corporation for Cheyenne and Laramie County, reported in November 2025 that there are 12 operational data centers in Wyoming, five under construction and plans for 43 data centers announced across the state.
“There needs to be more public input with this, and also to see how many we can sustain here in this community, cause there are talks of 43, and then another day 70. How many can we sustain here?” said Councilman Moody.
The proposed moratorium will now go to the Public Services Committee on Monday, May 18 at noon in the Municipal Building.
Sheridan will play in the North Regional Tournament at Gillette, while the South Regional Tournament will be played at Rock Springs.
North Regional Tournament at Gillette:
Checking record vs. highest team in the quadrant not involved in the tie, Thunder Basin gets the #1 Northeast seed over Campbell County, because the Lady Bolts went 3-1 vs. Sheridan, whereas the Lady Camels went 2-2.
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 NE) Thunder Basin vs. (#4 NW) Jackson – 11am
(#2 NW) Natrona County vs. (#3 NE) Sheridan – 11am
(#2 NE) Campbell County vs. (#3 NW) Kelly Walsh – 1pm
(#1 NW) Cody vs. (#4 NE) Worland – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Thunder Basin/Jackson winner vs. Natrona County/Sheridan winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh winner vs. Cody/Worland winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Thunder Basin/Jackson loser vs. Natrona County/Sheridan loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Campbell County/Kelly Walsh loser vs. Cody/Worland loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
South Regional Tournament at Rock Springs:
Friday, May 15th:
(#1 SW) Laramie vs. (#4 SE) Torrington – 11am
(#2 SE) Cheyenne East vs. (#3 SW) Green River – 11am
(#2 SW) Rock Springs vs. (#3 SE) Wheatland – 1pm
(#1 SE) Cheyenne Central vs. (#4 SW) Cheyenne South – 1pm
Semi-Finals:
Laramie/Torrington winner vs. Cheyenne East/Green River winner – 3pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Rock Springs/Wheatland winner vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South winner – 5pm Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
Consolation Round:
Laramie/Torrington loser vs. Cheyenne East/Green River loser – 3pm LOSER OUT!
Rock Springs/Wheatland loser vs. Cheyenne Central/Cheyenne South loser – 5pm LOSER OUT!
Saturday, May 16th:
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
TBA vs. TBA – 10am LOSER OUT! Winner qualifies for the state tournament.
2 10am winners vs. each other – 1pm 3rd Place
TBA vs. TBA – 1pm 1st Place
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