LARAMIE – Josh Allen concluded his jersey retirement ceremony last November with the catchphrase the sellout crowd at War Memorial Stadium wanted to hear.
 
But another iconic Cowboy athlete with a breathtaking highlight reel summed up the Border War from Wyoming's perspective a decade earlier.
On his senior night in March 2016, Josh Adams thanked the fan base, his teammates, family and the coaching staff for being "blessed" to play for the Cowboys.
 
"I'll say this and I mean it wholeheartedly, it's always going to be good to wear the brown and gold and it's going to be with me forever," Adams told the crowd following his final high-flying performance at the Arena-Auditorium. "And finally, it's always going to be one of the greatest privileges to be a Cowboy and it's always going to suck to be a CSU Ram."
 
Adams, one of the most prolific scorers and dunkers in program history, will be inducted into the UW Collegiate Athletics Hall of Fame on Sept. 11 at the Marian H. Rochelle Gateway Center.
 
The dynamic 6-foot-2 point guard was the most valuable player of the 2015 Mountain West Tournament as a junior and averaged 24.7 points, 5.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists and 1.5 steals to earn All-American honors as a senior.
 
"Words can't express it because I fought so hard here. It means everything to me to be a Cowboy," Adams said on being part of the 2026 class. "That's never left my spirit. It's in my blood; it's in my veins. To be kind of immortalized here and recognized for not the results but the hard work and the love and the dedication that I felt for this university and the love and dedication I felt from people is just like validation."
 
Larry Shyatt recruited foundational pieces to begin his second stint as UW's head coach. His 2011 class included Larry Nance Jr. and Riley Grabau. The next season he added Torrington's Jason McManamen, the Wyoming Gatorade Player of the Year, and transfers Derek Cooke Jr. and Charles Hankerson Jr.
 
Adams – who made an acrobatic tip-in at the buzzer to win the Colorado Class 5A state championship – was not recruited by Colorado or Colorado State coming out of Chaparral High School.
 
Shyatt had found another key piece of what would become a championship puzzle.
 
"Wyoming was the biggest school that recruited me. I didn't have a lot of looks coming out of high school (as) an undersized scoring guard, athletic but not a great shooter. Coach Shy saw something in me beyond that jumping ability," Adams said. "I had a chip on my shoulder since third grade, man. I wanted to be the best and no one would give me that credit and it fueled my entire career. When I got my opportunity to play high level Division I basketball and go against people like CU and CSU, that not only didn't recruit me but didn't recruit my brother, I took that personally and that carried me a lot of the way through my career.
 
"The people here in Wyoming and the fans and the coaching staff and the players were all on that same page. We wanted to prove something, we had a chip on our shoulders, and we had to prove there were some tough (competitors) up here in Laramie."
 
The Cowboys won a combined 38 games during Adams' freshman and sophomore seasons but settled for appearances in the CBI.
 
Expectations were much higher entering the 2014-15 season when Nance, Cooke, Grabau and Hankerson were all seniors.
 
After sweeping CSU by early February, the Pokes were 19-4 overall and 8-2 in the MW with a conference title and an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament in their sights.
 
However, Nance missed a stretch of games with an illness and UW lost five of its final seven games to end the regular season 22-9 (11-7 MW).
 
Shyatt's squad responded by beating Utah State (67-55), No. 25 Boise State (71-66, overtime) and San Diego State (45-43) to win the MW Tournament in Las Vegas. Adams hit a clutch 3-pointer in the final minute to punch the ticket to the Big Dance.
 
"It rivals anything you do in sport because at that point it was three years of work. It felt like four because I was one of the only guys that started as a freshman and played with those guys. It was their last year, so I felt like it was kind of our final push," Adams said. "The situation we were in where we were in the top 25 and we dropped a stupid game when we had a lot of guys sick, it was kind of the perfect storm that ignited that chip on our shoulders where we could go from an at-large bid to, 'Oh never mind Wyoming is going to Wyoming.'
 
"We got pissed off and it propelled us through that stretch. That goes to a group of guys who have played together for three years."
 
Shyatt would have ridden into the retirement sunset or made the move to the NBA as an assistant after the magical run, but he promised Adams he would coach him throughout his UW career.
 
Adams was the MW player of the year in 2015-16. His 24.7 points per game led the conference and ranked third in the NCAA. His 740 points in 2015-16 broke Flynn Robinson's school record of 701 during the 1964-65 season.
 
"I think the statement I made after winning the Mountain West Tournament was that for an older coach it doesn't get any better than this," Shyatt said. "We had five seniors all graduate on time. We cut the nets down at a place that's never done that before in this league. And last, but not least, we had a first-round NBA draft choice (Nance). I said it's like the beer commercial: 'It doesn't get any better than this.'
 
"But Josh's senior year, when he was carrying the team, that was a spectacular individual performance."
 
Adams made nine 3-pointers against CSU on Feb. 20, 2016, which tied UW's single-game record during the Pokes' 84-66 win at Moby Arena. He made 96 3-pointers during the season to rank second in UW single-season history. He scored a career-high 38 points at New Mexico on Jan. 16, 2016, for the program's first win over New Mexico in The Pit since 2003.
 
"That's why Papa Shy is probably the best coach that I've ever played for. He promised me during that recruiting process that he would be here my four years and he not only had the opportunity to ride off into the sunset but to go and consult at the next level and bring his talents to that next level," Adams said. "But he stayed simply out of a promise he wanted to keep to me, and it turned out to be one of the most influential seasons of my life that probably propelled me through the rest of my career.
 
"It meant the world to me. His ability to kind of let me go and go play was amazing."
 
Adams played for the Denver Nuggets in the 2016 NBA Summer League, but a serious car accident temporarily derailed his professional career. He recently finished a 10-year basketball career overseas that included stops in Australia, China, Greece, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Spain.
 
Last season Adams led Lutheran High School in his native Parker, Colo., to a state championship as the interim head coach. He is now the full-time head coach and brought his team to the UW men's basketball team camp last month.
 
"I told my players and my coaching staff this is the only time thus far where I feel like I've wanted to come out of retirement," Adams said. "It would be to play here again. … It's always amazing to come back here. Every time I come back it's that feeling of nostalgia, I get goose bumps every time I'm in this arena."
 
Adams, who has a master's degree in clinical psychology, is a therapist and the co-founder of PIVOT, an athlete performance development company.
 
"I'm thrilled he's coaching high school basketball," Shyatt said. "But I'm more excited that he's really into the mental health part, where he wants to help people who have emotional issues and need to focus and concentrate. He's such a good example."
 
The passion Adams brought to Wyoming basketball, and his feelings about the Border War, mirror those of a certain NFL MVP.
 
"I'm so honored and blessed to represent this university and this beautiful state. I love you guys," Allen said after his No. 17 was retired. "Thank you, God bless, Go Pokes and it will always suck to be a CSU Ram."
 
Adams, who will join Allen in the UW Athletics Hall of Fame on the eve of the Cowboy football home opener, should have copyrighted the catchphrase.
 
"Shout out to Josh Allen, but I'm going to need an autographed jersey or something for stealing my senior speech," Adams said.
 
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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