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The University of Wyoming basketball team will be without star senior center Uche Nsonwu-Amadi when the Cowboys take on Pac-10 foe Washington Thursday night in the Bank of America Arena at Hec Edmundson Pavilion. Tipoff is set for 8 p.m. (MST).
Nsonwu-Amadi, who is averaging 16.7 points and 14.0 rebounds so far in the young season, is still nursing a sprained knee suffered eight days ago in the first game against College of Charleston in the Great Alaska Shootout and did not make the trip to the Northwest. The sprain kept him out of the second game against Alaska Anchorage, but he came back in the final game to score 23 points and pull down 18 rebounds against Loyola Marymount.
?The doctors have recommended that Uche not play Thursday,? said Wyoming coach Steve McClain. ?It?s a precautionary thing more than anything.?
Although Nsonwu-Amadi is expected to be back in the lineup for next Monday?s home game with Boise State, it won?t do the Cowboys much good Thursday against the winless Huskies, who may be on the edge of getting their season going.
Washington is 0-3 for the season under first-year head coach Lorenzo Romar. The Huskies were blown out at UNLV (82-61), but then had a close loss to Montana State (56-53) at home before taking Gonzaga into overtime at Gonzaga before losing (95-89).
?Washington is like any team that has a new coach,? McClain said. ?He?s (Romar) trying to figure the players out, and they are trying to figure him out. By looking at the stats and their game against Gonzaga, it looks like they have figured each other out pretty well. They had a great opportunity to win that game against a Top 25 team on its own home court.?
Washington is not a big team, but instead relies on its quickness and ability to shoot the ball. The Huskies have three very good perimeter players in 6-foot-6 junior forward Doug Wrenn, 6-0 junior guard Curtis Allen and 6-1 sophomore guard Will Conroy.
?Wrenn is a great player who will some day be playing in the NBA,? McClain continued. ?Allen is very talented, very quick and can shoot the three. And then Conroy scores 30 on Gonzaga the other night. So many people are paying so much attention to Wrenn and Allen that they forget about Conroy. Going in we know we have to stop Wrenn, but we better guard Allen and Conroy as well because they can burn you if you don?t.
?Washington is definitely a talented team. They have all the things they need to be good. Their big kids are young, but they are playing better every game. They?re a team that is going to get better as the year goes on.?
The Cowboys are 3-1 for the season after finishing fourth in last weekend?s eight-team Great Alaska Shootout. Their only loss so far has been to College of Charleston, which went on to beat Oklahoma State and Villanova to win the Shootout.
?This team has an opportunity to be better than last year?s team,? McClain said of his Cowboys. ?Are we better right now? No, but I would be worried if we were. It?s a long season, and we have a lot of new guys. Yes, we have four returning starters, but we have a lot of new guys, too. They are still trying to figure out how they fit in with this team. We?re not as good as we were at the end of last year when we beat Gonzaga, but this team has the potential to be better once we get everybody comfortable with their roles.?
The Cowboys have three players averaging in double figures for the season. In addition to Nsonwu-Amadi, senior guard Donta Richardson is averaging 19.2 points per game and senior swingman Marcus Bailey 17.5, despite being slowed by an ankle sprain. Richardson was the only Cowboy named to the GAS all-tournament team.
With Nsonwu-Amadi out of the lineup, junior Niyi Makun and sophomore Alex Dunn will share the post duties against the Huskies. The other starter is sophomore point guard Jason Straight, who has struggled with his scoring in the early part of the season, but has done a good job of running the team.
The Cowboys? Achilles heel to date has been their shooting ? primarily from the 3-point arc and at the free-throw line. As a team, Wyoming has hit 17-of-52 shots (32.7 percent) from beyond the arc and 87-of-132 (65.9 percent) from the charity stripe.
?We?re not too far off from the arc, but our free throw shooting cost us the Charleston game. There?s no question about that,? McClain said. ?We went to the line enough times to beat them. You have to make free throws in big games. That?s the difference when you are standing at the line with nobody guarding you. You?re never going to make all of them, but you should be in that 72 to 75 percent range.?
Thursday?s game will be special for Wyoming junior newcomers David Adams and Ryan Wildenborg. Adams, who transferred to Wyoming from Washington State, played his prep ball at Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash. Wildenborg, who transferred to UW from Minnesota, played at Juanita High School in nearby Kirkland, Wash.
?Both David and Ryan will be excited to play,? McClain said. ?Any time you get the opportunity to go back home and play in front of your family and friends it?s exciting. I would expect both of those kids not only to be excited to play, and play very well.
?David and Ryan both had their best minutes in our last game (against Loyola Marymount) in Alaska. Both looked like they had their game instincts back after sitting out last year. As the season goes, I expect both of them to contribute more and more.?
McClain said he would prefer to be playing at home Thursday instead of going back out on the road, but it was something that could not be helped.
?We just as soon not be going back on the road after being on the road for seven days,? McClain added. ?But with scheduling as hard as it is here, when we got Washington to agree to go home-and-home, this is the date they needed. The only thing that helps us is that we don?t play Saturday. We play again on Monday, but that?s at home.?
The Cowboys play at home for the first time since Nov. 23 when they host Boise State this coming Monday at 7 p.m. in the Arena-Auditorium.
