By Jarra Gojolo — Content Editor
It just wasn’t their rodeo.
Seneca Knight scored 21 points, as San Jose State men’s basketball (7-16, 3-8 MW) lost to Wyoming (6-17, 1-10 MW) on Saturday at the Event Center.
Wyoming had a chance to pull away early in the second half, but the Spartans’ switch from a zone defense to a man defense brought them back level. Despite the defensive adjustment, the Cowboys pulled away for good down the stretch.
Greg Milton drained a three from the left corner with 20 seconds left to seal the Spartans’ fate, a shot that forward Christian Anigwe said came from a defensive breakdown.
31 of SJSU’s 57 shots were threes, including 10 of its first 11 shots. Head coach Jean Prioleau says the volume of threes Saturday was also determined by how the Cowboys defended SJSU.
“They like to pack the paint, if you realize, we didn’t really get a lot of drives to the basket for a layup,” Prioleau said. “When that happens, the guys on the outside are wide open.”
“If you don’t shoot it — which you can choose not to — you’re just going to wind up driving the ball right back into a pack of people. Obviously we don’t want that type of percentage, but we want to shoot threes, we’re going to continue to shoot them.”
Richard Washington led the Spartans with five assists to go along with 14 points and six rebounds.
“Rich did a great job today, he found the open guy, he made the right reads,” Prioleau said. “That’s what we want our guards to be able to do.”
Prioleau says he doesn’t have a traditional “point guard,” a single player that handles the vast majority of the ball-handling and distributing duties. Those responsibilities are shared by perimeter players like Washington, Knight, Brae Ivey, Omari Moore and others.
The Cowboys came into Saturday’s game winless in Mountain West play. Despite their conference struggles, Prioleau says he wasn’t taking Wyoming lightly.
“You can’t look at the standings and say ‘oh, we’re supposed to.’ Nah, you can’t do that, especially in college basketball. On any given day you can beat whoever, that’s the joy of college basketball.”
The Spartans’ next game is Feb. 8 at Nevada.
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