LARAMIE – It would be understandable if Cowboy fans showed up at the Arena-Auditorium this season wearing Cheeseheads.
 
Wisconsin has been good to Wyoming basketball lately.
 
Sundance Wicks returned to UW as head coach after a successful one-year run at Green Bay. He was named the Horizon League Coach of the Year and the Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year that season.
 
Gavin Gores, who is from Cumberland, Wis., was one of the best freshmen in the Mountain West last season. The 6-foot-10 sophomore is one of the returning pillars of Wicks' rebuild.
 
During the last recruiting cycle, UW signed another top Wisconsin high school prospect in Chris Pohl, a 6-foot-7 forward who played on the same AAU team as Gores growing up.
 
"Gavin gave me someone to look up to and he pushed me every day," said Pohl, who is from Marshfield, Wis. "I watched all his games. If he had a good game, I was the first one to text him and if he had a bad game, I was the first to let him know, always checking on him.
 
"Having him here helps, especially because I've seen him do it and I know it's possible to do. He has indirectly pushed me to go as hard as I can. It's nice to be on the same team as him again."
 
Pohl is an elite perimeter shooter, which was obvious during the first few weeks of summer workouts. Wicks has challenged him to improve defensively to solidify a role in UW's rotation as a freshman.
 
"Chris knows how to play. He's a very humble warrior who is eager and just wants to learn," Wicks said. "He's in here watching film a lot. He can shoot the crap out of the basketball. Shooting is a separator, we understand that, but you have to be able to defend multiple positions, make hits on screens, cut with force and know when to cut. You have to go in the space and re-space. He's learning all those things in this terminology for the first time.
 
"So, his head's spinning a little bit, as it should be, but I never discredit a guy who can sit in the corner and shoot the crap out of the basketball."
 
Pohl's offensive prowess was on display during a summer camp last June in Wisconsin when UW assistant Nick Reynolds, who was also on Wicks' Green Bay staff, happened to walk into the gym.
 
"Coach Reynolds saw me hit like four or five 3s in a row and he was like, 'Who is this kid?'" Pohl said. "A couple weeks later we were in Memphis. He texted me and he came and watched me. I got back to the hotel, I think it was a Saturday night, and he called me and said he wanted to offer me.
 
"I had a couple other offers at the time but basically when he offered me, I knew I was going to commit. I still waited until my visit (to Laramie) in early September and broke the news to Coach Sunny."
 
Pohl and classmate Madden Smiley, the two-time Class 5A Player of the Year in Colorado, have made strong early impressions on a team that returns Nasir (Naz) Meyer, Khaden Bennett, Uriyah Rojas, Neil Summers and Gores.
 
"We're in the same room every day, there's no break from each other," Smiley said of going through the growing pains with Pohl. "But it's nice because we have those little talks about where we're at, where we're at mentally, things we need to work on. It's cool having someone going through the same things and knowing they have challenges just like I do. It's fun to talk through them and figure out some things you need to do."
 
As for Wicks' scouting report on Pohl?
 
"I would say it's more than fair," Pohl said. "They're being nice to me in terms of how defense has been going. For lack of a better word, it's been terrible. … I've always been one to kind of think out what's going to happen next on the court before it happens. I think I am in my head a little bit right now. That's not an excuse. It's just something I need to work past.
 
"The shooting has always been there. That's why they recruited me here because I can shoot the ball. I'm never going to lose that confidence, regardless of how many (shots) I miss."
 
Wicks and the coaching staff have been coaching Gores, despite his impressive rookie campaign, and the other veterans just as hard as Pohl and the other newcomers.
 
If the Cowboys are going to contend for the MW title, everyone on the roster must lean into their strengths and improve their weaknesses.
 
"(Pohl) could text Gavin last year: That looks like fun, man. But when you're in it you figure out how much work goes into playing like Gavin played last year or how much work goes into winning the games that we won," Wicks said. "I think it's hard for players to appreciate the process early because it's so hard. It's a culture shock.
 
"As it goes on there's this delayed gratification of like, man, all this work I put in, all these days I have been stacking, I start to appreciate what we're going through not just looking at the gap that I get to fill but the gain that we've had. I think (Pohl) will get there by the end of the summer."
 
(Editor's note: This is the second in a 10-part series introducing Cowboy fans to Wyoming's new men's basketball players)
 
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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