LARAMIE – Death, taxes and the Pokes going bust in Las Vegas.
Wyoming finished 4-for-25 on 3-pointers and with 14 turnovers that led to 21 points on the other end during a 62-48 defeat to UNLV on Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center.
The Cowboys (12-10, 5-4 Mountain West) lost for the 20th consecutive time to the Rebels (12-9, 5-4) in regular-season road games dating back to 2003.
UW did beat UNLV in the 2022 MW Tournament in Las Vegas.
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“I’m disappointed in the final score,” UW head coach Jeff Linder said. “We came into the game with a lot of confidence knowing that we were playing a really talented UNLV team. I mean, having played against some of the teams in our league thus far, from a size standpoint, length and athleticism, they’re as big as anybody in our league.”
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Linder’s team played solid half-court defense but went on a scoring drought of 10 minutes, 32 seconds spanning the end of the first half and the start of the second half.
UNLV came out of the halftime locker room and went on an 11-0 run to take a commanding 42-23 lead before Sam Griffin finally scored to stop the bleeding with 12:39 remaining.
UW trailed by as many as 23 points (48-25) before a late push. Mason Walters completed a three-point play to cap a 10-0 run by the Cowboys.
Griffin converted a layup to get UW within 56-44 with 2:55 remaining but freshman Dedan Thomas closed the lid on the coffin with back-to-back 3s for the Rebels.
Cam Manyawu scored 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds off the bench to lead UW. Brendan Wenzel, who was playing with three displaced ribs, added 12 points on 4-for-13 shooting.
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Griffin and Kot combined for 15 points on 6-for-23 shooting.
“For us, we’re one of the top 10 3-point shooting teams in the country and when you go 4-for-25,” Linder said. “A lot of those were pretty open looks. Akuel goes 0-for-8, Sam goes 1-for-6, and if those two guys go 1-for-14 it’s going to be hard for us to win.”
The Cowboys trailed 31-23 at the intermission after shooting 3-for-16 (18.8%) on 3s.
UNLV led 22-13 before Griffin countered with a 3 and Wenzel scored on a sweet spin move in the paint to get the Pokes within four points.
Thomas capped a 9-3 run with a floater to make the score 31-21.
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Wenzel, who scored a career-high 25 points during Tuesday’s win at Air Force, led UW with eight points at the break.
UW held Kalib Boone scoreless on 0-for-6 shooting and limited Rob Whaley to eight points, but Thomas and Keylan Boone scored 14 points each for the Rebels.
UNLV finished 8-for-20 on 3s with four turnovers and 14 assists.
“We did a really good job with our game plan of trying to make things really hard for Kalib Boone, who had been playing at a really high level coming, in along with Robert Whaley,” Linder said. “For Boone not to score, for Waylee to have eight points, we did our job there.”
The Cowboys, who are 8-1 at home, will play No. 19 New Mexico on Tuesday night at the Arena-Auditorium.
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Follow UW beat writer Ryan Thorburn on Twitter @By_RyanThorburn
CLEVELAND — The University of Wyoming wrestling team capped its 2025-26 season with a 12th-place finish and 38 points at the NCAA Championships inside Rocket Arena, marking the highest NCAA finish in head coach Mark Branch’s 18-year tenure. The Cowboys had three wrestlers earn All-American honors.
“It was a great weekend for the Cowboys,” Branch said. “I couldn’t be more proud of these guys for the way they fought through this incredibly difficult tournament. They handled themselves like champions. It was awesome to be around this, and it was awesome to celebrate this with them. Being an All-American is something they’ll have the rest of their lives, and I know how important that is, how big it is and how hard it is at this level.”
At 197 pounds, No. 5 Joey Novak earned his second consecutive All-American honor with a fourth-place finish. He defeated No. 11 Camden McDanel of Nebraska, 7-3, in the consolation semifinals before falling to No. 3 Stephen Little of Little Rock, 7-4, in the third-place match.
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“He embodies the Cowboy tough mentality,” Branch said. “He loves this program. It’s what you need in this day in age. You need guys like Joey. The leadership that Joey has shown is what we’ve been trying to build.”
At 184 pounds, No. 6 Eddie Neitenbach secured his first All-American recognition with a seventh-place finish. He won his final match via medical forfeit over No. 22 Zack Ryder of Oklahoma State.
“Eddie is awesome,” Branch said. “He came in with the most favorable seeding, meaning I was surprised how high a seed he was. Don’t let that fool you. He’d been hanging around 8/9/10 in all the polls. It wasn’t a given he was going to come in and place. He definitely had to show up, and he put together a heck of a tournament.”
Heavyweight No. 18 Christian Carroll also earned his first All-American honor, finishing eighth. Carroll dropped his final match to No. 10 David Szuba of Arizona State by disqualification.
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“Christian was gutsy, and he’s learning a lot about himself,” Branch said. “He certainly was feeling the weight of this tournament on him. After losing that first match, his confidence was shaken a little bit. But he picked it up and battled back and showed a lot of grit there. He showed what he’s about and what he’s capable of. He’s been an awesome addition to our team.”
Elsewhere, Gabe Willochell went 3-2 at 149 pounds, advancing to the blood round, while Luke Willochell (133) and Riley Davis (174) each recorded one win in the tournament.
Penn State won the team title with 181.5 points, followed by Oklahoma State with 131 and Nebraska with 100.5.
Many people in Wyoming aren’t terribly fond of turkey vultures. They poop all over trees, barf up “pellets” of leftover gristle and who knows what else, and just hang around looking creepy.
That’s a rush to judgment, vulture advocates say. They admire turkey vultures as a bird that can migrate from Canada all the way to South America and play a vital role in keeping the landscape clear of rotting carcasses.
One of the first signs of spring is vultures showing up in Wyoming, usually in March. They roost by the hundreds on the University of Wyoming campus, in Casper and elsewhere across the state.
They’ll fly out in the morning, usually between dawn and about 8 a.m., and spend the day soaring through the skies, looking for carrion to devour. Then they return in the evening to roost for the night.
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Around October, they’ll leave, migrating south for the winter.
Much remains unknown about Wyoming’s turkey vultures. To help find out more, the UW Biodiversity Institute launched the Vulture Watch Wyoming volunteer program in 2024. A vulture-watching training session is set for March 24.
Turkey vultures show up in Casper in March, and stay until October, when they migrate south. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)
Every spring, hundreds of turkey vultures show up on the University of Wyoming campus and stay until fall. (Courtesy: Anna Petrey)
Every spring, hundreds of turkey vultures show up on the University of Wyoming campus and stay until fall. (Courtesy: Anna Petrey)
Here Come the UW Vultures
In Laramie, the UW campus is turkey vulture central; there have been as many as 297 of them counted roosting in trees or on buildings, mostly around the Old Main building or in clusters of spruce trees around 15th and Garfield streets.
Vultures seem to like spruce, cottonwood and poplar trees. They don’t seem to care much for pine trees, and nobody is sure why, said Elizabeth Wommack, curator and collection manager of vertebrates at the UW Museum of Vertebrates.
They first started showing up on campus around 2010, she told Cowboy State Daily.
“They sort of used that core group of spruces when they first arrived, and they spread out to other trees,” she said.
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Anna Petrey, a Ph.D. student in Clinical Psychology at UW, told Cowboy State Daily that she developed a fascination with turkey vultures after spotting them on campus and joined Vulture Watch Wyoming.
“Vultures are a really precious and interesting bird to me,” she said.
She understands that most people don’t perceive vultures that way.
“I think it’s in part because people do find them to be stinky and gross. But I thought, ‘that can’t be fair, I need to learn more about them,’” she said.
“I think they’re pretty cool-looking; that might be an unpopular opinion,” Petrey added.
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Even when there are hundreds of them roosting on campus, it’s easy to miss noticing them.
“They roost up high in trees, and people might not look straight up and see them,” she said.
Vultures are also incredibly quiet, because they basically can’t vocalize, she added.
“The best that they can do is a quiet hiss, and that’s all they can produce,” Petrey said.
Every spring and summer, hundreds of turkey vultures roost in trees on the University of Wyoming campus. (Courtesy: Mason Lee)
Turkey vultures scour the countryside across Wyoming, looking for carrion to eat. (Courtesy: Rena Parsons)
The turkey vulture on the left in this photo is a juvenile, identifiable by its gray head and beak, compared to the red head and white beak of an adult. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)
Roosting, Not Nesting
Wommack said that roosting spots are where turkey vultures go to rest and sleep. They don’t nest or raise their young in those places.
Vultures nest in hidden, isolated places, and don’t like their nests being disturbed, she said.
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“The nests are hidden, in places like crevices, caves or hollow trees,” she said.
A turkey vulture nest was once discovered in the trunk of an abandoned car in Nebraska, Wommack said.
Juvenile turkey vultures are ready to leave the nest after a few months. They can be identified by their gray heads and dark-colored beaks.
That’s in contrast to the red heads and “bone-white” beaks of adults, Wommack said.
It’s uncertain just how many turkey vultures spend the spring, summer and early fall in Wyoming, she added.
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That’s one of the mysteries that she hopes the Vulture Watch Wyoming program will help unravel, she said.
“It’s one of those common avian species that we sometimes take for granted,” she said.
“We decided that reaching out to the community and asking the community to help would be the best way to find out more about them,” Wommack added.
Turkey vultures show up in Casper in March, and stay until October, when they migrate south. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)
Turkey vulture have warts on their faces, called crunkles. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)
Nature’s Clean-Up Crew
Vultures are designed to consume dead animals, particularly in warm weather, Wommack said.
“They don’t have the same equipment that eagles do,” such as huge claws and sharp, curved beaks for catching prey and killing it, she said.
Those same features allow eagles to turn to scavenging during the winter, because they can rip into frozen carcasses.
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Vultures, on the other hand, require softer carcasses that have started to rot a little, which is why they show up to scout the Wyoming landscape during the warmer months.
Vultures search for food by soaring at high altitudes. As one might expect, they have excellent eyesight for spotting dead animals below, Wommack said.
They also have an incredible sense of smell, which helps them find rotting carcasses from great distances, she added.
In Wyoming and across the Great Plains region, turkey vultures don’t have much direct competition.
Farther east or west, they must contend with black vultures or California condors, both of which are bigger and will bully turkey vultures off carcasses.
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Adult turkey vultures weigh about four pounds on average and have wingspans of 4½ to 6 feet.
“They have about the same wingspan as golden eagles, but they weigh much less than golden eagles,” Wommack said.
There are written records of turkey vultures in Wyoming going back to the 19th century, she said.
Turkey vulture have warts on their faces, called crunkles. (Courtesy: Joanne Theobald)
‘Crunkles’ in Casper
Multitudes of turkey vultures roost in trees in Casper, said resident Joanne Theobald, a Vulture Watch Wyoming volunteer.
“I’m lucky enough to live in a tree neighborhood in Casper. So we’re lucky enough to have roosting vultures, including one right outside my window, in my neighbor’s tree. So I get the view without the mess,” she said.
Though vulture poop is remarkably clean, it builds up over time, so she understands why homeowners with trees get fed up with it.
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“They also throw these pellets; they barf them up. And then there’s the feathers too,” she said.
“People just kind of develop this idea that vultures are dirty, or that they mean death, or they’re going to carry off your small animals,” Theobald said.
“People think they’re creepy, because they’re ugly, but that’s not their fault,” she added.
In addition to their bald heads, vultures develop white facial warts, called “crunkles,” she said.
That might make them even less visually appealing to some, but Theobald said she wonders if the differing number of crunkles on vultures’ faces could help identify individual birds.
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Theobald hosts presentations to educate people about vultures and dispel some of the negative impressions about them.
And she thinks Wyoming makes a great place for turkey vultures to come hang out during the warm months.
“If I were a vulture, I would love Wyoming. It’s windy here and they just love to ride the thermals. And there’s wide open spaces with lots of things just dying of natural causes,” she said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
