Jeremiah Oden rolls with the punches, makes the most of his minutes

Jan. 13—LARAMIE — Few would have blamed Jeremiah Oden for being upset with his limited minutes earlier this season.

Oden, a 6-foot-8 junior for the University of Wyoming men's basketball team, played just four minutes in a 61-56 loss to Drake in the U.S. Virgin Islands Paradise Jam in November. Out of the 15 games he's played in this season, he's played 10 or fewer minutes in five of them.

What separates Oden from the majority of college basketball players is his ability to roll with the punches and grow stronger through the adversity of his fluctuating minutes. The dedication has paid off lately, with Oden playing at least 36 minutes in the Cowboys' past three conference games.

A large factor for Oden's uptick in minutes has been the influx of injuries to several key players over the past month. Even with playing as few as four minutes in a game, Oden has continued to stay prepared for when his number was inevitably called.

"When a teammate goes down, I never try to look at it as an opportunity," Oden said. "I always just kind of just look at it as it's our job. That's what we're here to do, so if someone does happen to go down, it's your job to be ready to step up."

Oden's season-high point total came in the Cowboys' first game of the season, a 102-69 home win over Colorado Christian. He scored 17 points in just 18 minutes, but didn't score in double digits again until nearly a month later, when he netted 14 during an 89-85 overtime loss to Santa Clara.

The conference season got off to a rough start for Oden, who was scoreless on two field goal attempts in 10 minutes in a road loss to Fresno State. But his role has shifted of late after Hunter Thompson was ruled out for the foreseeable future with his third bout with mononucleosis.

Oden has moved into more of a power forward role in the absence of Thompson and Mountain West preseason player of the year Graham Ike, who still has yet to play this season due to a lower right leg injury. In Thompson's place, Oden scored 13 points and collected five rebounds in 36 minutes against then-No. 22-ranked New Mexico last month.

He was even more efficient against San Diego State last week, scoring 15 points on 6-of-9 shooting to go along with seven rebounds and two assists in 39 minutes. In Tuesday's 83-63 road loss to Utah State, Oden played 36 minutes, scoring 13 points and grabbing a season-high eight rebounds.

"I've just mainly been focusing on trying to be ready for whatever each particular game presents," Oden said. "If we're playing one team, we might need me to do one thing, and we play another team, and we need me to do another thing. It's really just about me staying ready for whenever my number is called."

Oden's play this month has been one of the few bright spots for the injury-riddled Cowboys. UW is 5-11 overall and 0-4 in conference play, and is the only MW team without a conference win.

While injuries have played a big part in the Cowboys losing six consecutive games and 10 of their past 12, Oden knows the team still has the talent to make a deep run in the conference tournament in March.

"This is definitely one of the weirdest seasons I've ever played, just in terms of the injuries with teammates," Oden said. "But we have a lot of dudes on this team that can go. With all the injuries that we have had, we've been fortunate to have enough guys with enough talent to still be able to try and figure some things out.

"Nothing is going to change on our end. We'll still be in practice every day, trying to get after it and trying to find a way to get a win."

Despite the depleted roster, the Cowboys, for the most part, have been competitive in league play. UW lost to Fresno State by five, New Mexico by one and now-23rd-ranked San Diego State by five before being blown out by 20 in Logan this week.

"It's just a matter of us continuing to know that we can win on any given night," Oden said. "We can obviously beat anybody. We just took the No. 22 team in the country (New Mexico) to a one-point game. It's just a matter of knowing that we have the ability to beat anybody, but that there's also not much wiggle room there.

"We just have to clean some stuff up and make sure we're playing as sharp as possible."

Oden knows the Cowboys need to be at the top of their game going into the home stretch. Part of his responsibilities as a paint player has been helping out on the glass, an area in which the Cowboys rank eighth in the conference at 32.9 rebounds per game.

"Rebounding is huge for me," Oden said. "That's a big step for me taking that next step as a player individually. Being able to be consistent in that area is huge."

Another area UW has struggled in is at the free-throw line. The Cowboys rank 10th out of 11 teams in the conference with a 68.1% clip. UW is also tenth in the MW in scoring margin (dead-even at 0.0), and the missed free throws have definitely added up, especially late in games.

"High-level basketball games so often go down to the wire," Oden said. "The margin for error is always going to be slim. It's even more so slim with us being so shorthanded now.

"It's just a matter of keeping it clean with the turnovers and making sure we're rebounding and defending at a high level. More so than anything, we have to stay connected."

Jeff Linder, who's in his third season as UW's coach, has liked the growth he's seen from Oden over the past month. While he admits Oden's minutes should have been higher earlier in the season, Linder has been pleased with how the forward has taken advantage of his increased role.

"From an everyday standpoint, and what we're about as a program, he embodies that," Linder said. "He's a guy that, probably early on, should have seen more minutes, but it was just kind of the way we were. But he did it and he never put his head down.

"He's having to play out of position right now, which most of our guys are, but those minutes are going to be valuable for him as he's moving forward."

Linder does expect Oden's role to change again when Thompson returns to the starting lineup as the main big in the paint. But that could also be another opportunity for Oden to evolve his role at the position he's more comfortable with.

"His minutes might drop a little bit when Thompson comes back, but then he'll be able to kind of go back to his natural position where he can rebound better," Linder said. "He's done a tremendous job in terms of having to play against a lot bigger guys. He's getting outweighed by 30, 40 and 50 pounds and a lot of inches."

The Cowboys, who are still looking for their first conference win of the season, have a tough test at home this weekend. UW will host Boise State (13-4, 3-1) at 9 p.m. Saturday at the Arena-Auditorium.

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.