Wyoming
Ice-cold Colorado State taken out by Wyoming | Takeaways
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LARAMIE, Wyo. — Shot after shot hit the rim. Or rimmed in and out.
With each miss, the Arena Auditorium crowd raised its decibel level just a little bit.
The once-dynamic shooting attack of the Colorado State men’s basketball team abandoned it in the worst way Jan. 31 in a 68-57 loss at Wyoming.
“They punched us in the face and we kind of weren’t ready for it. They started the game off strong and we started slow,” CSU star Kyle Jorgensen said.
The Rams started slow (down 13-3 early) and slowly chipped away. It was a four-point Wyoming lead at half. For the first 10 minutes of the second half the CSU deficit was between four and eight. Wyoming couldn’t pull away, but CSU couldn’t fully close.
Then the wheels fell off. Wyoming went on a 12-0 run in the middle of the second half and the lead ballooned to as much as 16 (54-38). CSU tried to make another comeback attempt but the Wyoming lead was never less than eight in the final 10 minutes. The Rams never led in the game.
Here are takeaways from the game.
Colorado State’s shooting touch has gone away
CSU was the most efficient offense in the nation for most of nonconference play as the Rams started 9-2.
Things unraveled early in Mountain West play offensively, but at the time it felt like injury to star Kyle Jorgensen could largely give the Rams an explanation for why.
But now it’s clear the offense is struggling mightily. CSU (12-10, 3-8 Mountain West) is back to full health but things aren’t clicking.
Turnovers have been one demon, with CSU losing the ball 15 or more times in six games this season (five of them in MW play). Turnovers weren’t the main issue in this one (there were 10 CSU turnovers).
Now shooting woes are a big concern, particularly from 3-point range. CSU was 8-30 (27%) from 3-point range last game in a 23-point loss at San Diego State.
It was even worse in Laramie. CSU hit just one of its first 14 3-pointers. Concerningly, the looks were generally open and to what CSU would consider its best shooters.
CSU coach Ali Farokhmanesh said the Rams were a bit 3-point happy early (seven of their first 10 shots were from deep) but from there took good looks outside.
“It makes it really hard when you’re missing shots,” Farokhmanesh said. “We missed a lot of shots tonight that honestly I can’t complain a whole lot about most of them.”
But basically everyone was missing.
The Rams finished 4-23 (17%) from 3-point range and Kyle Jorgensen (2-6) was the only one to hit multiple 3-pointers.
CSU still entered the game 5th in the nation in 3-point efficiency at 41% but the number dropped to 35% in Mountain West play (and will go down further after this one).
Good shooters didn’t become bad shooters in a span of a week or two, but the Rams are low on confidence and low on makes.
The Rams started attacking the paint to some level of success and outscored Wyoming 36-14 in the paint. The teams reversed roles, with good two-point team Wyoming shining from 3-point range and good 3-point team CSU only scoring on two’s.
“If you would have told me we beat them 36-14 before the game started I would have thought we probably would win by 20,” Farokhmanesh said.
CSU has shot 37% overall from the floor the last two games and 23% from 3-point range.
Wyoming role player leads Cowboys
Wyoming (13-9, 4-7 MW) guard Khaden Bennett entered the night averaging nine points per game and shooting 29% from 3-point range.
He hit his first three 3-pointers to reach his season average scoring.
The points kept coming. Bennett went 6-8 from 3-point range and scored a season-high 22 points and he also snagged 10 rebounds.
“They had a guy that hasn’t shot well all season go 75% from 3, so sometimes that’s basketball,” Farokhmanesh said.
That’s an elite performance to win a rivalry game.
Wyoming makes just eight 3-pointers per game but hit 12 of them in this one. The Cowboys are a 32% shooting 3-point team and hit just shy of 50% (12-25) against CSU.
Much-needed bye for Colorado State
It’s fair to say the Rams are reeling a bit. This is now three losses in a row and defeats in five of their last six and the Rams appear to be battling confidence issues.
“It looks like it,” Farokhmanesh said on if CSU is lacking confidence. “That happens. That’s the ebbs and flows of sports. There’s ups and downs. You can’t buy into that. You have to remember who you are and what you do every single day.”
This game, where CSU was a narrow one-point underdog, was the start of a shift in schedule where the Rams would mostly play the lower tier of the league.
This is, obviously, a bad start to that stretch. Still, CSU will look ahead to turn around the record.
The Rams have a midweek bye, which feels like a much-needed time to reset and then CSU will face struggling San Jose State (7 p.m. Feb. 7 at Moby Arena).
CSU must start stacking wins to get the season back in the right direction.
“We’ve got to look in the mirror a little bit and realize, too, people scout us at a high level,” Farokhmanesh said. “That’s what the Mountain West is. We can’t just rely on what’s worked in the past. We have to adjust to what’s happening.”
Sports reporter Kevin Lytle can be found on social media on X, Instagram and Threads @Kevin_Lytle and on Bluesky.
Wyoming
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Wyoming
Rivalries and Playoff Positioning Highlight Week 11 Wyoming Girls Basketball Slate
It’s Week 11 in the 2026 Wyoming prep girls’ basketball season. That means it’s the end of the regular season. 3A and 4A schools have their final game or games to determine seeding before the regional tournament, or if a team is locked into a position, one last chance to fine-tune before the postseason. Games are spread across four days.
WYOPREPS WEEK 11 GIRLS BASKETBALL SCHEDULE 2026
Every game on the slate is a conference matchup. Several rivalry contests are part of this week’s schedule, such as East against Central, Cody at Powell, Lyman hosting Mountain View, and Rock Springs at Green River, just to name a few. Here is the Week 11 schedule of varsity games WyoPreps has. All schedules are subject to change. If you see a game missing, please email david@wyopreps.com.
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Laramie 68 Cheyenne South 27 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: Lyman 40 Mountain View 26 (conference game)
CLASS 4A
Final Score: Evanston 41 Riverton 39 (conference game)
Final Score: Natrona County 42 Kelly Walsh 38 (conference game) – Peach Basket Classic
Final Score: #4 Thunder Basin 64 Campbell County 32 (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Final Score: #1 Cody 77 Worland 33 (conference game) – 5 different Fillies with a 3, and Hays led the way with 34 points.
Final Score: #2 Lander 49 Lyman 34 (conference game)
Final Score: #4 Wheatland 51 Douglas 40 (conference game)
Final Score: #5 Powell 48 Lovell 42 (conference game)
Final Score: Burns 56 Torrington 43 (conference game)
Final Score: Glenrock 78 Newcastle 30 (conference game)
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CLASS 4A
Rock Springs at #2 Green River, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#4 Thunder Basin at #5 Sheridan, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cheyenne East at #3 Cheyenne Central, 6 p.m. (conference game)
Jackson at Star Valley, 6 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
#3 Pinedale at Mountain View, 4 p.m. (conference game)
#1 Cody at #5 Powell, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
Buffalo at Glenrock, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
CLASS 3A
Newcastle at Buffalo, 12:30 p.m. (conference game)
Glenrock at Rawlins, 3 p.m. (conference game)
Torrington at #4 Wheatland, 5:30 p.m. (conference game)
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Gallery Credit: David Settle, WyoPreps.com
Wyoming
Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers
Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.
The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.
“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”
Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.”
Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”
Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.
The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they’d open a criminal investigation.
Bextel declined to answer questions from the Guardian. Brady, McCann and Bear did not respond to requests for comment.
Neiman said he considered the criticism a “wraparound smear campaign”. He said: “It never once crossed my mind that this was bribery.
“These legislators, myself included, are now guilty until we can prove that we’re innocent. How is that right in this country? Isn’t that a little bit backwards?”
The scandal has highlighted long-standing divisions in Wyoming’s Republican party, which in recent years has seen a growing divide between old school, more moderate conservatives and a harder-right Freedom Caucus.
Several former Republican lawmakers forcefully condemned their colleagues for accepting the checks, and a local Republican party branch called for the lawmakers’ resignations.
Ogden Driskill, a Wyoming Republican senator, told the Guardian he does not consider Bextel’s actions to be illegal, but that “just because you can do it doesn’t mean you should”.
Bextel has spent years pushing against housing mitigation fees in Wyoming, and Driskill noted that she distributed the house floor checks just days before a bill she had publicly supported was set to be heard. Bextel was registered as a member of the press, not as a lobbyist when she delivered the checks.
“Ethically and morally, it’s bankrupt to a massive degree,” Driskill said.
Neiman said that he and other legislators who received checks have supported similar bills in the past: “Bribery is paying somebody to do something they would not otherwise do.”
Nationally, the 2024 election cycle saw record-spending from the mega-wealthy, as well as dark money groups. Wyoming followed the trend, in a tense red-on-red primary season.
For those gearing up to campaign this year, Teton county, the richest in the US, and Bextel’s picturesque home turf, is an essential stop. Its extreme wealth gives it a foothold on the national level as well. Palantir chief executive Alex Karp and Donald Trump attended an annual Republican leadership fundraiser at Jackson Hole in 2024, and JD Vance attended the same one in 2025.
Bextel pulls dollars from Teton county into the Freedom Caucus side of Wyoming’s conservative split. She hosted no-press-allowed meet and greets earlier this year benefitting leading candidates for Wyoming’s governor and open US House seat.
In an interview with the Open Range Record, a media network she co-founded, Bextel said controversy around the checks was solely because she was making “even playing field” in Wyoming against the state’s more moderate Republicans, who she calls “George Soros” candidates. She said that she will be sure to keep raising money – just away from the legislative floor.
“I guess I’m gonna ask all the gentlemen and gentleladies to step outside the Capitol while I hand them a check,” Bextel said. “Let me be clear: I’m doubling down.”
But it’s not just wealthy local donors putting their weight behind the factions. Last election cycle, out of state groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anonymous and often inaccurate mailers.
“These actors, especially from the far right, they like to push the bounds of the norms,” said Rosa Reyna Pugh, an organizing and advocacy consultant at Western States Center, an Oregon-based non-profit focused on democracy in the western United States. “They like to see what policies they can kind of push, and see where they can play a piece,” Reyna Pugh said.
While Neiman and Driskill fight politically, they do agree on one thing: summer will bring an expensive and brutal campaign season.
“You’re going to see more dark money than you’ve ever seen. We’ve done absolutely nothing to enforce it. Our secretary of state has not even made a slight attempt to deal with it,” Driskill said. “You’re going to see lots and lots of outside money and I think you’re seeing it on both sides.”
As national questions swirl around pay-to-play politics and profiteering in the Trump administration, Provenza wants better for the Cowboy State.
“We should not be aligning ourselves with how the federal government is conducting itself or how federal elections conduct themselves,” Provenza said. “We owe something far better and more honest to the people of Wyoming than that.”
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