Air Force's offensive woes lead to a loss against Wyoming

When Michael Lyons, in his first game back from a scary ankle injury, dunked on 6-foot-7 Wyoming forward Leonard Washington, that should have been Air Force’s highlight from a second straight conference win.

Instead, that dunk was the last time Air Force showed any life on offense against the Cowboys, letting Wyoming slowly pull away for a 64-53 win at Clune Arena.

Lyons’ dunk came with 5:46 left and gave the Falcons a 46-42 lead. The Falcons got lost on defense and immediately gave up a 3-pointer, which started a 13-0 Wyoming run. Air Force didn’t score for the next 4:12.

“Their defense got to us pretty much the whole game,” guard Todd Fletcher said.

There were plenty of missed shots, and surely too many missed free throws as Air Force went just 9-of-18 at the line. What frustrated coach Jeff Reynolds most was 16 turnovers, an uncharacteristically high number for a team that is usually pretty careful with the ball.

During one stretch in the second half, Air Force had four turnovers in five possessions. As that happened, Wyoming went from trailing by a point to being up by seven.

“You’re not going to beat a team as good as they are defensively if you turn it over,” Reynolds said.

Wyoming is a good defensive team. The Cowboys came into the game 18th in the nation in turnover margin, and third nationally in points allowed per game. Still, the Falcons felt plenty of the mistakes were their own doing.

“I tip my hat to them, they played really hard on defense and they did cause a lot of those turnovers, but a lot of them were our fault,” forward Mike Fitzgerald said.

The way Wyoming locked up Air Force in the second half shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise, since that situation played out for the final 4:44 of the first half as well. Air Force led 21-13 with 4:44 left, but didn’t score again in the first half. Wyoming trailed just 23-22 at halftime, despite Air Force controlling most of the half.

The Falcons seemed to miss starting forward Taylor Stewart, who is out indefinitely with a broken left ankle suffered in practice on Monday. Air Force did have Lyons return after missing six games with a sprained ankle, but he wasn’t close to 100 percent. He scored nine points.

After picking up a good road win at Boise State in the conference opener last Saturday, Air Force fell back to 1-1 in the conference and 11-5 overall with the tough home loss.

“You’ve got to win your home games in this league, and road games are hard to get,” Reynolds said. “Our basketball team has a challenge at San Diego State on Saturday, and we’re going to have to rally and get going.”