LARAMIE, Wyo. (Jan. 1, 2023) – The Wyoming Cowgirl basketball team opens the New Year with a two-game road swing next week. The Cowgirls open the road trip with a January 3 contest at Utah State with a 6 p.m., tip time.
Wednesday's game will be broadcast live on the Mountain West Network and can be heard across the Cowgirl Radio Network with David Settle on the call.
ABOUT THE COWGIRLS
Wyoming (6-6, 1-0 MW) opened league play with a strong 61-47 win Saturday over Boise State in Laramie. The Cowgirls held the Broncos, who entered the contest shooting 37.5-percent from 3-point range, to just 1-of-17 shooting from beyond-the-arc in the win. McKinley Dickerson led all scorers with 16 points off the bench in the victory, shooting 6-of-12 overall from the field and 2-for-5 from beyond-the-arc. Dickerson also grabbed five rebounds and had a pair of assists against the Broncos.
Tess Barnes and Malene Pedersen also scored in double figures to open conference action, scoring 13 and 11 points, respectively. Kati Ollilainen led the Cowgirls with three assists in the win while also off the bench, Marta Savic had five points and a team-high eight boards. Wyoming shot 45-percent for the game and held BSU to just 32.4-percent.
Overall this season, Allyson Fertig leads the Cowgirls averaging 13.7 points, 7.3 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game while shooting 56.5-percent from the field. That shooting percentage leads the MW. Pedersen also is in double-digit scoring in 2023-24 at 10.8 points per game while Barnes is scoring nine a contest. Savic leads Cowgirl reserves with 6.7 points and five rebounds a game. The UW bench is averaging 21.2 points per game.
Both Dickerson and Fertig are trying to reach the exclusive 1,000-Point Club in program history. There are currently 27 members that have scored 1,000-or-more points in Cowgirl Basketball history. Dickerson enters the week with 888 career points while Fertig has scored 931 during her career.
SCOUTING UTAH STATE
Utah State is led by one of the league's top scorers in Cheyenne Stubbs, who is averaging just under 16 points per game, ranks third in the league in scoring. Stubbs also scored 30 in USU's conference-opener against UNLV. Stubbs is shooting 43.5-percent from the field and has a team-high 29 assists, 19 made 3-pointers and 44 made free throws. Skye Miller is second on the team in scoring at 9.5 per game and has a team-high 4.8 rebounds per game. Tiairra Hill-Brown has a team-best seven blocks in 2023-24.
As a team, the Aggies are averaging 56.3 points per game and are allowing 68.8 points a contest. USU is shooting 39.2-percent overall from the floor and 26.6-percent from beyond-the-arc. Utah State opponents are shooting 42-percent overall and 30-percent from deep. USU is beging out-rebounded by nearly four boards per game and is averaging 5.6 assists fewer than its opponents this season.
SERIES HISTORY AGAINST UTAH STATE
Wyoming is 29-10 all-time in the series with the Aggies and won last season's lone contest, 64-52 in Logan. The Cowgirls are 12-6 in the series in Logan and are just 2-2 in the last four road contests in the series. UW has won nine of the last 10 meetings with USU. In two games against the Aggies, Fertig is averaging 16 points and 12 rebounds per game on over 72-percent shooting from the floor.
-WYO-
