By ANNA HAYNIE
Down, but not out, the Cougars will close up the first half of Mountain West Conference play with two games on the road. After a disappointing loss to Utah Friday night Jan. 28, the Cougars (13-5, 3-2) are now vying against New Mexico for third place in the MWC.
The Cougars will face sixth-place Air Force Academy (4-14, 1-3) Thursday night Feb. 3 in Colorado, and then head to New Mexico, where they will take on the Lobos (12-6, 3-2) Saturday night Feb 5.
This week will be a crucial week of play for the team, head coach Trent Shippen said.
“If we can get both of these games, it will keep us in the hunt to win the conference,” Shippen said.
Looking at the Falcons’ record, it doesn’t look like that game will be too difficult.
The Falcons recently broke an eight-game losing skid, defeating San Diego two weeks ago. Their winning streak didn’t last long, however — one game — and the Air Force Academy saw losses the last two times they hit the court.
Besides that, the Cougars generally do well on the road and are looking forward to this trip.
“It’ll be a good opportunity for us to release our frustrations from our previous games, like Utah and CSU,” Erin Thorn said. “We usually play pretty well on the road. This win would really get our confidence back up.” Regardless of the records of whomever they are playing, the Cougars aren’t going to take any game sitting down.
“You can’t take any team flat,” said Thorn. “We know we can win if we go out there and play hard, but we can’t just overlook them.”
Despite their losing record, the Falcons are ranked nationally in more than one area.
They are fifth in the nation in three-pointers, averaging 7.8 per game. Leading the Falcons behind the arc is senior Megan Thiedeman, who is ranked fourth nationally and heads the MWC with a 3.39 average.
Representing the Air Force on the MWC scoring charts at fourth and fifth are Thiedman and Mollie Peters with 15.1 and 14.4 points per game, respectively.
The Cougars are close behind Air Force in three pointers, averaging 7.3 per game.
Still leading offensively for the Cougars is Jill Adams, who is sixth in scoring with a 14.4 average, and Erin Thorn, BYU’s three-point superstar. Thorn is averaging three treys per game.
So what’s it going to take to pull off two wins this weekend?
“We just need to mentally prepare,” Shippen said. “We can’t look back at our previous losses, we just have to move forward.”
For live coverage of the Cougars’ games against Air Force and New Mexico, fans can go to http://www.kbyu.org/sports/wball/.
