Laramie Basketball Looks To Fine-Tune Before League Play

It’s the last action before conference play starts next week for both Laramie basketball teams. They play Rawlins Friday and Rock Springs Saturday.

Tonight is a boys-girls doubleheader from Laramie High School. The boys play No. 5 Rawlins at 5:30 p.m. followed by the girls versus No. 5 Rawlins at 7 p.m.

Saturday will be a girls-boys doubleheader on the road. The Lady Plainsmen are at Rock Springs at 2 p.m. followed by the Plainsmen and Tigers at 3:30 p.m.

Laramie Plainsmen

Laramie (4-4) posted a 2-1 record in last week’s Taco John’s Invitational. They had wins over Green River in overtime and Class 2A’s top-ranked Pine Bluffs Hornets but lost to No. 3 Kelly Walsh.

Plainsmen head coach Travis Brown said he’s learned his team is gritty.

“What I like about them, they don’t turn on each other when things start going a direction that they didn’t envision. They actually pick each other up, and they play to the end. Even if we’re a little bit out-matched at times, I feel like they don’t give up. That’s all you can ask for as a coach.”

Brown added the focus in practice continued to be the refinement of their offense, plus they are still working on chemistry with the recent addition of sophomore Christian Mickelson, and senior Will Tyser returning from an injury.

These are the last two non-conference games for LHS, and Brown says I think they’ll be a good test.

“Rawlins has a 6-8 kid. He reminds me of Hudda (Herrera of Laramie) out there. He’s there Hudda, does a little bit of everything. He’s probably one of their best outside shooters, also, besides being big, which is much like Hudda for us.”

Brown believes they’ll have to work as a unit or they could be in trouble.

As for the Tigers, that game is a rematch of a 49-47 loss for Laramie in Riverton earlier this season.

Brown said, “I feel like we let that one slip a little bit. We weren’t quite there yet as a team, and I think we’re not the same team we were the first time we played them. Hopefully, we can go down there and get a little bit more success against them than we did last time.”

Laramie Lady Plainsmen

Laramie (3-5) is coming off a 1-2 effort during the Taco John’s Invitational last week. The Lady Plainsmen had a good win over Green River but lost to Kelly Walsh by two points and 2A No. 2 Pine Bluffs by six.

LHS head coach Rod Tyson said what he’s learned about his team thus far is they need more consistency.

“We’ve played well in spurts. We just have to tighten up and do that at the end of the game, and be really smart.”

Tyson feels rebounding, particularly boxing out on defense, continues to be something they have to work on, but also dribbling without turning the ball over, making good cuts and good screens.

All of this is in preparation before conference quadrant play starts next Wednesday at No. 2 Cheyenne East.

As for this weekend’s games, Tyson he knows they’ve played Rock Springs and beat the Tigers last month in Casper, 59-38.

“Both teams had a lot of turnovers, so hopefully, we can alleviate some of those and be a little bit smarter with the ball. They tried to press us a little bit, and we’ve got to make sure we handle the press without panicking, which we did that first weekend, but we still won the game.”

Tyson added that Rawlins is an unknown.

“I know there for a while they were really strong, but we gotta be ready to play. It doesn’t matter who we play, we have to take care of what we can do, and then hopefully that will take care of itself.”

KOWB (AM 1290) will have live radio coverage Friday night, but there will be a streaming-only broadcast through a third party Saturday afternoon.

Join David Settle from Laramie High School Friday at 5 p.m. You can listen on the radio, online, or the KOWB app.

Saturday will be streamed through www.network1sports.com/station/kowbnet with coverage starting at 1:30 p.m. There is no radio broadcast and no coverage through the KOWB website or app, only through the address listed previously for Saturday at Rock Springs.