LARAMIE – Sundance Wicks uses acronyms in abundance.
 
B.Y.O.J. (Bring Your Own Juice). H.T.B.A.G (Honor the Brown and Gold). T.G.T. (Tough Guy Town). G.D.T.B.A.C (Good Day to Be a Cowboy).
 
Wyoming's second-year head coach has a new condensed slogan for fans to get excited about for the 2025-26 season – RP40.

In Sunny speak, RP40 translated to "Relentless Pressure for 40 Minutes."
 
With a full recruiting and transfer portal cycle to assemble a roster with more athleticism, depth, length and quickness, Wicks plans for the Pokes to play an up-tempo style to take better advantage of all 94 feet of the court and 7,220 feet of altitude in the Arena-Auditorium.
 
"We recruited speed and skill," Wicks said of the reloaded roster, which includes 12 new players. "Because size is great, but if size can't move, defend, then what's it matter? …
 
"We've got to have some speed to put some pressure on people and then have to use the Arena-Auditorium, aka the Double-A, aka the Altitude-Advantage to our advantage."
 
Playing with pace starts in the backcourt where UW will utilize a group of experienced and talented guards.
 
Leland Walker, a graduate transfer, has scored 1,125 points with 375 assists and 99 steals in 101 career Division I games. The 6-foot-1 senior is a natural point guard who emerged as a team leader during summer workouts after signing with UW to help Wicks get the program back in the March spotlight.
 
"My goal is to make the NCAA Tournament, so I'm going to do whatever I can to lead the team," Walker said. "It's my last year so I've got to get to the NCAA Tournament."
 
The other impact guard transfers are 6-4 junior Khaden Bennett, 6-3 junior Uriyah Rojas, 6-2 sophomore Jared Harris and 6-1 sophomore Damarion Dennis.
 
Bennett averaged 10.3 points and 4.3 rebounds while leading Quinnipiac to 20 wins and a MAAC regular season title.
 
Rojas, a junior college transfer, scored 1,100 points and made 121 3-pointers over the last two seasons at Chaffey College. During the 2024-25 campaign he averaged 25.5 points – including a 54-point outburst on 17-for-29 shooting against Victor Valley – as well as 7.7 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game.
 
Coming out of high school in Texas, Harris was a top 100 national prospect with offers from SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East programs. He was part of Memphis' NCAA Tournament team last season before entering the portal looking for a bigger role.
 
According to the analytics Wicks and his staff use in evaluating prospects, Dennis was a top 100 player nationally in offensive rating and top 80 in turnover rate as a freshman at Texas A&M Corpus Christi.
 
"We're focusing on everybody's sweet spots and what they love to do," Harris said. "Once you get that then everyone will get connected and I feel like we'll have a great run at this."
 
Nasir "Naz" Meyer will provide size to the guard rotation. The true freshman from Los Angeles is listed at 6-foot-7, 194 pounds after grinding through Jimmy Edel's strength and conditioning program.
 
Meyer is part of a towering 2025 recruiting class that also includes 6-10 forward Gavin Gores, 6-9 forward Simm-Marten Saadi and 6-9 forward Neil Summers.
 
"When a guy commits to us, they're coming here for the right reasons," Wicks said. "That's the thing that Cowboy fans should know is that all these guys … they are coming here for the right reasons: the opportunity and they like Wyoming."
 
The Cowboys return two key pieces from last year's roster, 6-7 senior forward Matija Belic and 6-7 sophomore forward Abou Magassa. The mature duo have helped the coaching staff set the culture.
 
Belic was limited to 22 games last season after undergoing shoulder surgery. The versatile Serbian averaged 5.6 points and 3.1 rebounds while playing a chunk of the season on an injured ankle that required surgery in the offseason.
 
"There were a lot of ups and downs for me and for the whole team," Belic said of his first season at UW following a transfer from UC Santa Barbara. "My main goal is to stay healthy this year, play a role in each game as much as I can and win as many games as possible. At the end of the day, that's what matters."
 
Magassa was one of the nation's most efficient offensive players in 2024-25 when the French import shot 72.4% from the field while averaging 3.2 points and 3.7 rebounds in 31 appearances. Wicks is pushing Magassa to be more of a leader and to seize a larger role.
 
"He's an elite finisher. He has great hands, but he's got to take the next step for us," Wicks said. "He had a lot of inconsistency in minutes last year, but I think that's because he was a redshirt freshman and it was his first time playing at college. Now he knows what that feels like every single day."
 
Two additional international players, 6-8 senior forward Kiani Saxon of New Zealand and 6-7 junior guard/forward Adam Harakow, are expected to be key contributors in the rotation.
 
Saxon played for UW assistant Will Martin at Missouri Western and has a similar player-coach sensibility to what Cole Henry brought last season. Harakow led Lake Superior State to the Elite Eight in the Division II NCAA Tournament.
 
"Off the court, we're pretty tight. I'm really surprised about how well we're gelling," Saxon said. "On the court, credit to Coach Sunny on recruiting all these guys that actually want to come together, compete and try to build a team that's going to do something special this year."
 
UW fans can get an early look at Wicks' RP40 style at a slightly lower elevation when the Pokes play an exhibition against Northern Colorado on Oct. 18 at the Pronghorn Center in Gillette (elev. 4,554).
 
"We're going to lean into that this year, and we've recruited longer fast twitch athletes that are going to be able to get up and down the court," assistant Nick Whitmore said. "We've got a lot of depth this year which will help us play that style. If we can differentiate ourselves and hopefully see that fatigue set in the last 10 minutes for these opponents that have had to go through RP40. Hopefully at the end they are ready to tap out when our guys are in great shape and climatized and we're able to take advantage of that."
 
Follow Ryan for more stories on Wyoming athletics on X at @By_RyanThorburn on Facebook at Wyoming Athletics and Instagram at wyoathletics. Also follow him at Pokes Insider at Gowyo.com/pokesinsider.
 
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