What are the Cowboys replacing next year?

Mar. 24—LARAMIE — Going into this season, the University of Wyoming men's basketball team was set to return 85% of its scoring from the year before.

Going into next season, the Cowboys will lose 85% of their scoring, including seven of the team's top eight scorers from this year's 9-22 team. Those numbers don't include star forward Graham Ike, who didn't play a game this year after suffering a right foot injury during the preseason.

UW has eight players currently in the NCAA transfer portal, the latest being Ike, and will graduate its pair of super-seniors who helped rebuild the program over the past six seasons. As of Thursday morning, the Cowboys have 10 open scholarship spots out of 13 total and had their only high school recruit decommit last month.

Jeff Linder will have plenty of shoes to fill going into his fourth season as UW's head coach.

Outgoing transfers

Ike is far-and-away the highlight of the eight departing transfers. The junior had a monster 2021-22 campaign, averaging 19.5 points and 9.6 rebounds in 33 starts while helping the Cowboys secure an at-large bid in the NCAA Tournament.

Ike was named the Mountain West preseason player of the year before the start of this season, but never played a game. After an original prognosis from the school put his return from a foot injury at six to eight weeks, Ike announced last month he would not play this season and utilize a medical redshirt to avoid burning a year of eligibility.

Ike was the latest Cowboy to enter the transfer portal, putting his name in the pot Tuesday morning. The All-MW forward is undoubtedly the highest-profile transfer out of the conference this season and will likely land at a Power Five school with an opportunity to make some serious NIL money.

Noah Reynolds was the first Cowboy to enter the portal when it opened March 13. The sophomore was UW's leading scorer for much of the season, but was shutdown last month after suffering a third concussion in a six-month span during a road loss to San Jose State.

The left-handed guard averaged 14.5 points, 2.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 19 games for the Cowboys this season. He scored more than 20 points in seven different games, including five consecutive games midway through December.

The departures of Ike and Reynolds will hurt the Cowboys the most statistically, but the pair also received very little college interest in high school, aside from Linder.

Junior Jeremiah Oden was in Linder's first recruiting class after taking over at UW in 2020, along with Ike and Xavier DuSell. The trio have all entered the transfer portal over the past two weeks, with Oden putting his name in March 14.

Oden averaged 9.6 points and 3.6 rebounds in 30 games for the Cowboys this season. He scored a career-high 28 points in an upset win over Nevada last month in the home-finale at the Arena-Auditorium.

DuSell followed Oden into the portal Monday after spending the past three seasons in Laramie. The junior averaged 8.0 points and 2.6 rebounds this season, and led the Cowboys with 62 3-pointers while shooting 42% from beyond the arc.

Redshirt freshman Nate Barnhart also entered the portal last week after spending two seasons at UW. The 7-foot center averaged 2.6 points and 1.9 rebounds in 20 games this season.

Barnhart was named the MW freshman of the week in February after averaging 8.5 points, four rebounds and one block in a pair of games against Fresno State and San Jose State.

The California trio

The five players that entered the portal over the past two weeks joined a trio of Pac 12 transfers who left the team midseason last month.

Ethan Anderson and Max Agbonkpolo transferred to UW from USC, and Jake Kyman joined the Cowboys from UCLA last summer. The experiment of recruiting three lifelong friends from California was a disaster all around, with the three players packing their bags and leaving Laramie just 22 games into this season.

All three players entered the transfer portal after leaving UW. Anderson is the only UW transfer to find a new home so far after committing to Pepperdine on Thursday.

Anderson played the biggest role for the Cowboys this season, averaging 7.9 points, 4.3 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 21 games. After scoring 14 and 13 points in back-to-back games against Air Force and CSU last month, Anderson saw his minutes dwindle to just 15 combined in his final two games.

Agbonkpolo showed flashes this season, but his defensive struggles kept him off the court for long periods of time. He played in just 16 games, averaging 5.4 points and 2.8 rebounds. In his last three games for UW, Agbonkpolo played just 10 minutes total.

Kyman was battling through a back injury for the past month. Even when he was healthy, he averaged just 12.7 minutes through 18 games. He averaged 4.5 points and 1.6 rebounds, but shot just 26.8% from 3-point range.

UW scored a total of 2,144 points as a team in its 31 games this season. The eight outgoing transfers accounted for 1,196 of those points, or 55.8% of the team's total scoring.

Graduating players

Super-seniors Hunter Maldonado and Hunter Thompson both played in their final college game at the MW tournament earlier this month in Las Vegas. Both players exhausted their eligibility after spending the past six seasons in Laramie.

Maldonado is by far the biggest loss from this year's team. He led the Cowboys with 15.6 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 1.4 steals per game in 29 games this season.

Maldonado played in 157 games at UW. He finished with 2,158 points, 808 rebounds and 630 assists. Maldonado leaves Laramie as the school's third-leading scorer all-time, behind Brandon Ewing (2,168 points) and Fennis Dembo (2,311).

Thompson was UW's starting forward when healthy this season, averaging 6.6 points and a team-high 5.5 rebounds per game. The Pine Bluffs native ended his career with 880 points and 469 rebounds in 137 games.

Maldonado and Thompson combined for 622 of UW's 2,144 points this season, or 29%. Between the eight transfers and two graduates, next year's Cowboys will be without players who scored 1,818 of this year's points (84.8%).

Potential returners

The Cowboys have just three scholarship players left on the roster, including Brendan Wenzel, Kenny Foster and Caden Powell. Cort Roberson and Nathanial Talich were both preferred walk-ons this season.

Wenzel told the media he would return next season after a road loss to Colorado State last month. Foster also announced his plans to return to the Cowboys during a radio interview with Keith Kelley of KFBC.

Wenzel, who transferred to UW from Utah two years ago, averaged 7.9 points and 3.8 rebounds in 24 games this season. He missed nearly a month of the conference season after suffering a right knee injury in January.

Foster also battled injuries this season, playing in 17 games after having back surgery midway through the year. He averaged 4.8 points and 2.4 rebounds while averaging 18.1 minutes per game.

Powell played in 28 games for the Cowboys as a true freshman. He averaged 1.9 points and 2.0 rebounds in 8.4 minutes per game.

As of now, the Cowboys have 10 scholarship spots to fill for next year's team. UW's lone high school commit, {span}Makaih Williams out of Southern California Academy decommitted shortly after the trio of L.A. transfers left the team last month.{/span}

Linder has been away from the team after the death of his father, Bruce, earlier this month. Linder released a statement via email Tuesday morning, shortly after Ike entered the transfer portal.

"I took over this program the week COVID shut down the country in March 2020 with four returning players, and two years later, we were dancing our way to the NCAA Tournament," Linder said in the statement. "New challenges (transfer portal & NIL) have presented themselves in the last 12 months that has changed the landscape of college basketball. The new landscape isn't changing anytime soon, and we must embrace change.

"As we embrace change, I hope that the state of Wyoming and the passionate fans who wear the brown and gold will embrace the young men who will stay and RIDE FOR THE BRAND. There will be a lot of new faces next season across college basketball, and there will be a lot of new faces playing for the Cowboys in the Arena-Auditorium. The returning players and the new faces will play with a passion and pride that will make you proud."

Linder hasn't been available to the media since Feb. 27. In his email statement this week, the third-year head coach explained how he wants to learn from the adversity of this season to make the program better in the future.

"My players know that one of the four things that they are held accountable to every day is what their response is," Linder said. "As a head coach, I have never experienced a season like this. I have learned a great deal over the last 12 months and will be better for it.

"My response will embrace the changes that have impacted the program without sacrificing the standards that have allowed my teams to be successful and what will make us successful as we move forward. As we move forward as a program, I want to wish all the best to the players who have chosen to transfer and are grateful for the time they spent here."

Alex Taylor covers the University of Wyoming for WyoSports. He can be reached at ataylor@wyosports.net or 269-364-3560. Follow him on Twitter at @alex_m_taylor22.