Wyoming men鈥檚 basketball shows promising future with new coach
LARAMIE, Wyo. (BVM) 鈥� The University of Wyoming Cowboys men鈥檚 basketball team hired new coach Jeff Linder after the conclusion of the 2019-20 season. His impact on the team can already be seen even before the conclusion of his first season in Laramie.
In his first season at Wyoming, Linder had a depleted team. The team had two graduating seniors, five departing transfers and a player forced to walk away due to injuries.
However, Linder brought in seven new players, four three-star recruits and three transfers. According to Rivals.com, the Cowboys鈥� 2020 class was ranked No. 45 in the nation.
Wyoming began its season in late November with seven non-conference games. During that stretch, the Cowboys compiled a 6-1 record with the only loss coming to Texas Southern.
Their first conference games were postponed due to COVID-19 and have not been rescheduled yet. They finished the month of January with a 4-6 conference record and overall record of 10-7. The Cowboys were swept by both Boise State and San Diego State; however, swept Nevada and split the series with Air Force and Fresno State.
Wyoming currently sits at eighth in the conference but has already eclipsed the previous season鈥檚 record.
Linder, who was announced as the Cowboys鈥� new coach on March 17 last year, was previously the head coach at Northern Colorado for four seasons. While coaching at Northern Colorado, Linder garnered an 80-50 overall record and won the 2018 CollegeInsider.com Postseason Tournament. The team finished second in the conference in both the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons. Linder was named Big Sky Coach of the Year after a 21-11 finish to the 2018-19 season.
The 43-year-old coach is not new to the Mountain West Conference. From 2010-2016, Linder was an assistant coach at Boise State. In his first year, Boise was in the Western Athletic Conference and appeared in the College Basketball Invitational semifinals.
Following the switch to the Mountain West, the Broncos appeared in two NCAA Tournaments, 2013 and 2015, but lost both times in the First Four round. In 2015, Boise was the regular season champion of the Mountain West but lost to the eventual champions, the Wyoming Cowboys, in the semifinals.
Linder began his coaching career in 2000 at the University of Colorado. Over the next decade he moved on to assistant coaching positions at Emporia State (2001-2004), Midland College (2004-2006), Weber State (2006-2008) and San Francisco (2008-2010).
The 2019-20 Cowboys basketball team finished last in the conference with a 7-23 record (2-16 in conference). In the Mountain West tournament, Wyoming surprised many with an upset over No. 6 Colorado State and No. 3 seed Nevada. Their efforts fell short in the semifinals as they lost to the eventual conference champion Utah State.
In a shortened season, the Cowboys are looking to make the best of it. The team is averaging 76.8 points, second-most in the conference. Their defense is what has hurt them, with an average of 77.4 points.
The leading scorer of the team, freshman guard Marcus Williams, averages 16.3 points and is fifth in the conference in scoring. He also averages 4.1 assists, second-best on the squad.
The leader of the team, junior guard Hunter Maldonado, is averaging 12.3 points, 6.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists.
Linder鈥檚 work with the team has been evident early on and the players he has brought in have had an immediate impact. Despite some decreases in individual statistics, such as Maldonado, the team has greatly improved since the previous season.
As the season nears the end, the team looks to make a run at a conference championship and Linder鈥檚 first appearance in the Mountain West Championship game in only one season as head coach. The team will aim to make its first appearance at the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament since 2015.
