LARAMIE – On Jan. 27, 1911, Wyoming lost a 19-17 barn-burner to the Colorado Agricultural College in the first basketball game played between the Cowboys and the Aggies.
 
The venue was the Little Red Gym, which predated the Half Acre Gym and the War Memorial Fieldhouse and the Arena-Auditorium.
 
Over the last 114 years there have been some classic Border Wars on the hardwood between the Pokes and their rivals now known as the Colorado State Rams.
 
UW defeated CSU twice in Fort Collins and finished 26-3 overall during the 1933-34 season, which earned the program the Helms Athletic Foundation national title.
 
The Kenny Sailors-led Cowboys swept the Rams on the way to winning the 1943 NCAA championship.
 
From 1940-51 under legendary coach Everett Shelton, UW won 31 consecutive meetings in the series. CSU pushed back with a 12-game winning streak from 1959-64 while making its first two NCAA Tournament appearances in (1954 and 1963) under Jim Williams.
 
Bill Strannigan played for the Pokes and coached both CSU (1950-54) and UW (1959-73). Jim Brandenburg played for the Rams and coached UW (1978-87).
 
On Feb. 14, 1987, Reggie Fox made a 3-pointer to force a second overtime and Turk Boyd made a 3 to force a third overtime to lead the Cowboys to a thrilling 81-78 victory in Moby Gym. Brandenburg's team, led by Fennis Dembo and Eric Leckner, made a run to the Sweet 16 that season.
 
On March 11, 1988, Leckner hit a turnaround 19-foot shot at the buzzer to lift UW to a dramatic 60-58 victory over CSU in the WAC Tournament semifinals. Benny Dees and the Cowboys defeated UTEP in the title game to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
 
UW and CSU will meet for the 243^rd time on Saturday at the Arena-Auditorium (2 p.m., Mountain West Network).
 
The Cowboys (9-8, 2-4) lead the all-time series 139-103 over the Rams (10-7, 4-2), including an 81-40 edge in Laramie.
 
First-year UW head coach Sundance Wicks had his team, which includes 10 newcomers, watch the last three years of Border Wars to get a feel for the rivalry.
 
"Every time I've been in one of these games as an assistant it's never what you drew it up to be," Wicks said. "You just have to be ready to go compete, and I want to see some fight out of our guys. I told them to not show up on Saturday if you don't have a relentless desire to compete and an unbelievable will to compare."
 
The last three games at the Arena-Auditorium have stirred the echoes of the Dome of Doom glory days.
 
On Jan. 31, 2022, Hunter Maldonado scored a career-high 35 points to lead the Pokes to a wild 84-78 overtime win in front of a crowd of 8,148. CSU star David Roddy, after having his shooting arm unexpectedly rubbed by Xavier DuSell, missed a free throw with a chance to win the game in regulation. Both teams went on to the NCAA Tournament.
 
On Jan. 21, 2023, Noah Reynolds made a free throw with 2.6 left to give UW a 58-57 victory after the Rams had rallied back from a 14-point deficit.
 
On Jan. 27, 2024, the Cowboys overcame an 11-point deficit with 71 seconds left in regulation and stunned No. 23 CSU 79-76 in overtime.
 
Despite Friday's snowstorm and projected sub-zero temperatures on Saturday, Wicks is urging as many fans as possible to show up to witness Border War 243.
 
"I told our guys a long time ago I'd love for you to play in front of 10,000, 15,000 all the time. You've got to go earn the right for people to show up," Wicks said. "The Border War always earns the right for people to show up just because of the history of it all."
 
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