LARAMIE – The sounds of bouncing basketballs, squeaking shoes and Sundance Wicks' sage soliloquies have been echoing through the Arena-Auditorium for the last two weeks.
 
Wyoming's remade 2025-26 team – which includes 12 new players (seven transfers, five freshmen) – has been getting acclimated to the altitude and each other during summer workouts.
 
Due to Wicks' late hire (May 12, 2024) in last year's recruiting cycle, the 2024-25 Cowboys didn't convene in Laramie until July 1.
 
This time the coaching staff had almost two extra months to study the portal and target Khaden Bennett (Quinnipiac), Damarion Dennis (Texas A&M Corpus Christi), Adam Harakow (Lake Superior State), Jared Harris (Memphis), Uriyah Rojas (Cheffey College), Kiani Saxon (Missouri Western) and Leland Walker (Florida Atlantic) to fill out the roster.
 
Three true freshmen Wicks has been recruiting for years – Gavin Gores, Nasir (Naz) Meyer and Neil Summers – are also competing right now. Walk-on Talan Taylor was sidelined for the past two practices.
 
Two key rotation players, Matija Belic and Abou Magassa, and the final member of the 2025 recruiting class, true freshman Simm-Marten Saadi, will join the fray later this summer.
 
The shrewd coaching staff includes holdovers Nic Reynolds, Nick Whitmore, Tim O'Flannigan and Jimmy Edel and new assistant hires Will Martin, Chris Thomas and Chris McMillian.
 
I caught up with Wicks after Thursday's practice to get his early impressions about the new look Pokes and preparing for his second season as UW's head coach:
 
Thorburn: How does it feel to have two weeks of practice under your belt in June with this group of guys you were able to vet more than last year?
 
Wicks: I think if I'm going to talk harshly of myself, the strength and weakness of me is every day is Game 7. It's like you go down there and every day is Game 7. It can beat you down, wear you down a little bit as a player when Coach comes down there and my energy will demoralize you because every day is Game 7. But last year we started July 1. So, when Monday rolls around, I think that's June 30^th or whatever it is, we will have had two weeks of practice, two weeks of connecting and two weeks of competing prior to us even starting or even knowing who our guys were (last year). While every day is Game 7 right now, I've got six more good weeks with these guys where we would have just been starting last year. So, the stress and pressure you put on yourself kind of subsides because the work makes you relax. I'm not a big vacation guy, I don't like vacations, I want to be in the gym and the work makes you relax. The more work we have the more confidence I get, the more confidence they get and the better we become. ...

I've kind of changed our cultural philosophy because I wanted to complicate the simple. I told our guys our culture is as easy as A, B, C. Aligned, believe, compete. The alignment with who we are, who you say you are is aligned with what you do. Believe in something bigger than yourself and believe in yourself, believe in our processes, believe in the work. Then compete for everything. Always be caring, always be connecting, always be competing, always be communicating, always be curious, always be crazy … there's a bunch of A, B, C alliterations right here but at the end of the day we're always better collectively. If we understand that we're all better collectively, we're all about culture, we're all about Cowboys, we're all about championships then it's as easy as A, B, C. All you've got to do is show up every day, you've got to be in alignment, you've got to believe and you've got to compete. This team is aligned, they're believing, they're starting to. There's going to be doubt but they're competing way better than our team did last year at this time.
 
Thorburn: Obviously with 12 new guys, including some freshmen, it's going to be a work in progress all year, but what's your first impression of how it looks on the court after you put all those pieces together in your mind recruiting?
 
Wicks: It looks like 7,220 is going to be an advantage. That's what it looks like. It looks like there's guys that can apply relentless pressure for 40 minutes and we don't have to play the slowest pace in college basketball. We can extend our pressure and use the altitude advantage. It looks like these guys were made to play in Laradise. I'm not sure there has been a team since (Steve) McClain's teams that could get up and down like that and go put pressure on people for 40 minutes at 7,220. That's what is exciting about these guys and all of them are really stand-up solid human beings. Two clean weeks already. Last year at this time we had already had two incidents in the dorm and guys showing up late. Two clean weeks, man. That's a big deal.
 
Thorburn: Some of these guys have already gone on hikes together and when they are dismissed after a practice, they are still all out there 45 minutes later shooting together. What does that mean to you?
 
Wicks: That's winning, that's culture. It's what you think, what you say, what you do … it's your alignment. Someone asked me the other day, if you were to say what was the most important thing about building culture? It would be being in alignment. Who you say you are has to align with what you do. A lot of people say they want to be a winning team, a lot of people say they want to be a better player, a lot of people say they're the toughest player, a lot of people say they're the hardest worker. Not everybody does it. They're not in alignment with it. These guys are in alignment. They say they're tough, they say they're committed. Well, guess what? They're showing they're tough, they're showing they're committed and they're showing they want to get extra work in. They show they care about each other and that's culture, that's alignment.
 
Thorburn: What kind of impact have the new assistants had?
 
Wicks: I have a former head coach in high school in Whitemore, a former college coach in Martin, a professional coach in Chris Thomas, C-Mac is a former Cowboy, Coach Reynolds has been with me for three years. This staff is the most connected staff I've worked on. Guys care about each other, they hang around each other. That goes a long way because when the players see the connectivity of the staff it emulates the culture. I'm very grateful to be in the foxhole with these guys because they care so much about this process. I wanted to hire guys that care about Wyoming or care about Sundance at a high level. I'm always going to hire guys that care about players. I've got a staff full of guys that love Wyoming, and they love me. That's a big deal as a head coach to come in here every day and know if I'm gone recruiting for three days and I'm going to a clinic for five days the ranch is safe. I'm watching film and it hasn't burned down yet. I know the ranch is always going to be taken care of.
 
Thorburn: What do the next seven weeks look like in an ideal Sundance Wicks world with this group?
 
Wicks: Well, next week is another week of adaptation and adjustment and teaching and learning and building bases. Then in the next five weeks (strength coach) Jimmy Edel says I can go. He lets me go. I'm limited right now by Jimmy making sure the sea legs are underneath us and everybody has tested out right and everybody's body is OK and we're not overloading them. We're missing three guys. We're missing Abou, we're missing Matija and we're missing Simm, so the load these two weeks has fallen strictly on the 11 guys who can go. You have to be cognizant of that. They're not getting reps off. Week three will be another adjustment and adaptation week and four, five, six, seven it's go time baby. It's a fun time to watch practice for the next five weeks.

Thorburn: Do you think championships are won this time of year?
 
Wicks: I do. I believe in the (Jeff) Linder philosophy that when we first got here and started June 7 or whatever, we called it the celebration of basketball. Those that love it, those that live it, believe the summers are built for winning. You can say what you want, but we have to build our brand and we have to build our style of basketball in the summer because we don't have these guys for four years anymore, three years anymore. Two years is a good run. We've got to build it in the summer, that base, and continue to hammer it home in the fall. The summer is where championships are won.
 
If you are interested in learning more about NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) or would like to support our student-athletes, please visit 1wyo.org. 1WYO was created out of Wyoming's culture of neighbor helping neighbor. The mission is to promote and strengthen local charitable organizations and develop Wyoming student athletes. 
 
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.