LARAMIE – Road kill.
 
That would be one way to describe Wyoming men's basketball during last season's lopsided 96-49 loss at Texas Tech.
 
After the rematch on Sunday – the Cowboys pushed the 20^th-ranked Red Raiders to the final minute before losing 76-72 at United Supermarkets Arena in Lubbock, Texas – Sundance Wicks described his team as "resilient."
 
What a difference a second year makes with the boundlessly energetic Gillette native as UW's head coach.
 
Texas Tech head coach Grant McCasland, who agreed to scheduling the Pokes for two games in Lubbock as part of the cost of getting Jeff Linder to leave Laramie to join his staff, was impressed with the dramatic improvement UW has made under Wicks over the last 12 months.
 
"This will make us better," McCasland said during his postgame press conference. "They've got a great team, and they will keep improving. They've got a chance to be super competitive in the Mountain West and I'm excited to watch them grow and get better because they've got the right pieces and Sundance is doing an awesome job."
 
Leland Walker scored a season-high 28 points and led the visitors with five rebounds. Khaden Bennett (nine points), Uriyah Rojas (nine points) and Nasir (Naz) Meyer (eight points) also played well in a difficult Big 12 road environment.
 
The Red Raiders (6-2), who moved up a spot to No. 19 in the Associated Press poll on Monday, needed JT Toppin (27 points, nine rebounds) to play like the preseason All-American that he is to pull out the win.
 
"I thought Wyoming did a tremendous job. Sundance Wicks has got his team playing with a lot of energy," McCasland said. "They're competitive. Obviously, Leland Walker had a tremendous game. We let him get going early, we had a tough time guarding him in the middle of the floor. …
 
"Give Wyoming all the credit because I thought they took it to us in the way they drove the basketball and dictated the attack, and we just didn't respond well enough defensively over the course of the game."
 
The Cowboys (6-2) also received some love from the conference and the computers on Monday.
 
Meyer was named the MW freshman of the week for the second time this season and Walker earned the MW player of the week honor.
 
The NCAA released its first NET rankings, a metric used by the selection committee for the field of 68 at the end of the season, and UW was ranked No. 59, which is second among MW teams behind Utah State (22).
 
"This is a league environment. This is what the league looks like," Wicks said after the Pokes almost snapped Texas Tech's 44-game home winning streak against non-conference opponents. "It's not a disrespect to Texas Tech by any means, but Viejas is louder, Moby's louder, Spectrum's louder, Extra Mile. There are venues in our league right now that are pretty dang tough, and this was a good warm up for our guys."
 
UW still has three important non-conference games to play before starting the MW race. The Pokes host Dartmouth at 2 p.m. Saturday.
 
Wicks believes his team deserves to feel what it's like to turn the Arena-Auditorium into the raucous Dome of Doom.
 
"We're 11-0 right now in my tenure at home in non-conference (games), and we want to keep that," Wicks said. "That's a big point of pride for us to make sure that we have a really competitive home-court advantage.
 
"I hope our fans saw (against Texas Tech) that they should get their butts out there and come see this team play. We need that extra spark. When you're in gyms that are loud and you see these people cheering these guys on, our guys need that, too."
 
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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