University of Wyoming forward Jeremiah Oden drives to the basket during the Cowboys’ 85-62 victory over Fresno State on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, at the Arena-Auditorium in Laramie.
University of Wyoming forward Jeremiah Oden drives to the basket during the Cowboys’ 85-62 victory over Fresno State on Tuesday, Jan. 31, 2023, at the Arena-Auditorium in Laramie.
LARAMIE — The foundation of the University of Wyoming men's basketball program lineup continues to fall apart piece by piece.
On Tuesday, junior Jeremiah Oden became the sixth Cowboy from this year's roster to enter the transfer portal. The action reconnects the Chicago native with sophomore Noah Reynolds, redshirt freshman Nate Barnhart and grad transfers Max Agbonkpolo, Ethan Anderson and Jake Kyman as former Cowboys in the transfer portal.
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.
Oden played a total of three seasons for the Cowboys. As a sophomore last year, Oden started 32 games and played in 34. He averaged 7.8 points and 4.5 rebounds while shooting 52% from the field.
As a freshman, Oden played in 23 games, including 11 starts, and averaged 4.0 points and 2.7 rebounds. He committed to UW out of St. Rita High in the Chicago area.
Reynolds and Barnhart both entered the portal Monday. Agbonkpolo, Anderson and Kyman, who all transferred to UW from Power Five schools last summer, left the team last month for undisclosed reasons.
Agbonkpolo and Anderson entered the portal last month, and Kyman submitted his name last week.
The Cowboys finished the season 9-22 overall and in last place in the Mountain West at 4-14 in conference play. UW lost 87-76 to New Mexico in the first round of last week's MW tournament in Las Vegas.
UW is down to just five scholarship players on the roster, including Graham Ike, Kenny Foster, Caden Powell, Brendan Wenzel and Xavier DuSell. Cort Roberson and Nathanial Talich are both preferred walk-ons.
Ike, who was named the MW preseason player of the year before missing the entire season with a right foot injury, has still not announced what his plans are for his basketball career.
After the departure of Oden on Tuesday, the Cowboys have eight available scholarships out of 13. Along with the six transfers, super-seniors Hunter Thompson and Hunter Maldonado finished their careers at UW last week.
Jeff Linder has been away from the team since the death of his father, Bruce, last Thursday. Assistant coach Sundance Wicks stepped in for Linder as acting head coach during last week's conference tournament loss to the Lobos.
“In this world right now, everybody gets a choice,” Wicks said after the loss to New Mexico. “Everybody gets to make a decision. It used to be, you know, if someone decided to leave, they had to sit out a year. Maybe they weighed that choice a little bit differently. Now it’s free-99 for everybody.
“Everybody has a choice. At the end of the day, that’s why you have offseason meetings. You go back and sit down and reconvene. Everybody gets to talk about what’s going to happen next.”
Wicks also won't return to the Cowboys next season. The Gillette native was hired as the new head coach for the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay on Tuesday after spending the past three seasons as an assistant for Linder.
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.
