Wyoming game in Rapid City

[sdyotefan]

Wyoming won in OT 67-66. With 2 seconds left the Coyotes had a last second pass the lenght of the court and shot that was just off for the win. I was at the game. Was a very close,competitive game and the Coyotes played MUCH better than when they lost in WY earlier. It was GREAT to have Coyote men and women BB in Rapid City!!! Would neat to do that every year or at least every two or three years!

[yoteforever]

Thanks for reporting that. What was the crowd like? Enthusiastic for the Coyotes?

[Yotes]

On the radio it sounded like there was a fair amount of fans from both teams. This was a tough loss to handle. Bos had an absolutely amazing play in the final seconds of regulation when we were down by 3 by making the front end of a one and one, purposely missing the second and getting his own rebound, then making the ensuing two free throws to send it to overtime. Very disappointed when Wyoming took the lead with a few seconds left in overtime as it would have just been a tie had we not fouled them on their shot.

Clearly this team is improving though. Wyoming beat us by 17 a few weeks ago, and now we lead nearly all of the game and lose in the last seconds of overtime. That Air Force game had a lot of good as well and we would have easily taken it had we not had a gross amount of turnovers and fouls in the second half. Improvement is happening fast, I'm getting really excited for our conference slate.

[sdyotefan]

The crowd was 3300 so a very good crowd on a bitter cold night. I'd say about 60% Coyote faithful with a good representation for WY and of course the rest SD Mines fans. Was a close game the whole time so the crowd had fun and got their money's worth. Alumni Assoc was selling Coyote merchandise, USD pep band there, cheerleaders,dance team and Charlie for the kids. Was treated as a USD home game they did a good job of that. WY is very tough--to illustrate a week or so ago they lost to Colorado by 5 and CO beat #6 Kansas by 3 yesterday! So it was a very good game for the Yotes overall!

[canislatrans]

Sounds like a successful Rapid City event! 3,000+
I think they should consider making that an annual event. BB is easier to do, and I think the Yotes just improved their brand and connected with an important segment of their base.
Perhaps they can convince Colorado, Colorado State, Air Force or similar.

[usdlaw]

I just got home from Rapid CIty. Took the whole family out to the game. We had a blast. They really did a good job out there ... both the team, the fans and administration. I know there were 2300 seats sold before the game and Herbster told me they were expecting 1000 to 1500 walk ups. Never heard final number but 3300 to 3500 sounds about right.

Special shout out to Steve Anderson and Dave Gustufson (sp) (both former Yotes) and a few others for all the work they did out there. Dave and another guy that I didn't recognize did a great job court side trying to get fans to cheer. They were into it and it was a fun event.

A lot of high school kids there, the entire St Thomas More team sat right in front of me. Saw plenty of other HS teams too. Thanks to guys like Chuck Riter for making that happen - I heard a bunch of people (sorry don't know all names to list) for buying extra seats and giving to area high school kids.

Tech had probably 300-500 there, the former coach sat right behind me. Man she sure can yell. She was nice though, but coached from the sidelines the whole time. It was fun to listen to her.

The women dominated, as expected. It was probably hard for the ladies to get too excited. I sure like the way Tia plays, she is all over the place. Starters were basically taken out with about 8-9 minutes left.

The mens game was see saw the whole way. Yotes got several bursts but just couldn't hang on. The crowd really got into it the last three minutes and OT. I would say there was maybe 800-1000 WY fans. A lot more than I expected. I had several sitting in front of me that were from Rapid City, so guessing just like USD that was their opportunity to see their team.

Number 22 for WY was impressive, that big boy sure has hops. Gruis played well, so did Bos. Flack was more aggressive, that was good to see. He got fouled on an almost put back dunk that was almost ESPY like. Even the WY fans in front of us were impressed.

The alumni assn did a great job selling merchandise. Way better than the stuff at Barnes & Noble and Scheels.

I saw massive improvement from the game in Vermillion I saw last week. I'm not sure I'm sold on Norris as a point guard though, would like to see a little better passing. He's just not a Nate Tibbits or Josh Mueller yet.

The final play where Flack got off a shot was good, great job Joey for drawing up a play that was very close to winning the game. And obviously the hustle of Bos at the end of regulation was fantastic.

I would say a very successful event, and I have absolutely NO problem if we have one home game a year in Rapid. Even with a new arena I think I would say that. As Rapid is successful then the following year should be even more successful. The weather was crazy cold, and probably drove some people away. I give the overall atmosphere an A-.

On a side note, I saw several people from Pierre area at the game, and two other normal SF fans at the game. Other than that, didn't see any SF or Vermillion people make the trip. Next year I hope you do, I thought it was worth it.

Go Yotes!

[coyote70]

I'd second everything usdlaw stated. Great atmosphere for a BB game. The cheerleaders, dance team and even the band were all smiles and reflected very well on USD. The Coyote merchandise the Alumni Association was selling was great, only wish we had that kind of selection more often out here.

The women's game got off to a slow start I thought and got a bit ho-hum after awhile. Still, having the U play a local team was very smart and attracted some fans who probably would not have attended otherwise. I have strong ties to Mines and wished they could have pushed the lady Yotes a bit more. As for our women, the local Stevens High grad did not suit up which was perplexing.

The men's game was a story of would, coulda, shoulda in short. Early three pointers kept Wyoming in the game early. In the end I felt our defense was very good; the offense needs work, especially from our forwards. The center (Gruis) fouling out on a not-so-good call seemed to spell the end for us. I thought our guard play was very good.

In the end I want to thank USD for coming out here. Looking forward possibly to USD vs Wyoming 2 (for the men) and USD vs Mines or Black Hills (for the women)sometime in the future??

[JeremyHoeck]

Margaret McCloud didn't make the trip to Rapid

[yotemeal]

Great game and a good atmosphere. While we left with a loss, I think the objective was met, i.e., show Rapid City that we care enough to come out there and prove we are not D-I in name only. We competed well against a Wyoming team that will win a lot of games in the Mountain West. I'm still more upset about the home cooking in the Air Force game. Air Force, unlike Wyoming, will not win many games in the Mountain West. We were clearly the better team.

[flashtaco]

Dec 9, 2013 16:51:44 GMT -6 yotemeal said:

Great game and a good atmosphere. While we left with a loss, I think the objective was met, i.e., show Rapid City that we care enough to come out there and prove we are not D-I in name only. We competed well against a Wyoming team that will win a lot of games in the Mountain West. I'm still more upset about the home cooking in the Air Force game. Air Force, unlike Wyoming, will not win many games in the Mountain West. We were clearly the better team.

I concur. Great job by all parties involved for this event. I was planning to attend, had 4 tix, but was unable to attend. I watched the end of the game on TV. Very impressed and would support the same going forward.