They say two wrongs don’t make a right. For fans of the Wyoming Cowboys, an alley-oop dunk at the end of Saturday’s 72-64 win over their bitter rival Utah might have provided some form of retribution.
With Wyoming holding onto a six-point lead with six seconds remaining in the game, Utah pursued Poke senior guard Brandon Ewing toward the sideline. With a little more than a second remaining, Ewing flipped a pass toward his team’s basket, which Wyoming forward Joseph Taylor picked out of the air and flushed for an exclamation point on a statement win. The act was reminiscent of Utah football head coach Kyle Whittingham’s decision to go for an onside kick with the U football team leading Wyoming 43-0 in the third quarter of last year’s conference football meeting.
“I just felt my team deserved an apology from (Wyoming head coach Heath Schroyer) on that,” Utah head coach Jim Boylen said. “There was no remorse there, and there was no respect for the game.”
The Wyoming Associate Athletic Director for Media Relations, Tim Harkins, did not immediately return The Daily Utah Chronicle‘s phone call seeking comment from Schroyer.
Boylen and Schroyer engaged in a vocal confrontation after the game.
“I was disappointed in that (dunk),” Boylen said. “We were not pressing the ball. We were not going to foul again. The clock was going to run out, and they threw a lob to Taylor, and I thought it was uncalled for.”
Although it’s not uncommon for a player to get caught up in the moment — especially considering the stir in which Wyoming has been since last year’s football game — Boylen suggested it had nothing to do with the players.
“When those things happen, sometimes your players make a mistake,” Boylen said. “When I asked Heath about it, he said, ‘I was telling them to pull the ball out.’ Well, he wasn’t telling them to pull the ball out. We’ve got it on film that he wasn’t telling them to pull the ball out. Then he said in the paper that it was just an ‘instinctive’ play. Well, we don’t have those kind of instincts around here.”
Boylen has developed a track record for giving thanks for each of his opponents during his post-game press conference, particularly after playing against inferior teams during the Utes’ pre-conference schedule. In the past, he has always chosen his words carefully to avoid disrespecting his opponent, especially when he was displeased with his team’s performance despite a double-digit win.
