by nathan oster
The Greybull Buffs took their best shot at the No. 1 team in Class 2A Friday night in Ethete.
Wyoming Indian proved to be too much, however, as the hosts raced out to a 20-5 lead and held on to win 69-61 in a matchup of the top seeds for the upcoming Class 2A West Regional in Riverton.
The Buffs clinched the Northwest Conference crown with their 70-26 win over Riverside Thursday — and with just two blemishes on their record, they viewed their encounter with the unbeaten Chiefs as a measuring stick, according to Coach Jim Prather.
“In the locker room before the game, we identified two things we’d have to handle if we wanted to weather the storm,” Prather said. “One was just the quickness with which they advance the ball up the floor. The second was the defensive pressure, just in terms of it being constant, aggressive and physical.
“I told the kids they would put us back on our heels a little bit — there isn’t anybody who goes to Ethete who doesn’t get to experience that — but that if we could weather the storm and get settled down that we could give them a good game. That is kind of how it played out, too.”
The Buffs did get ambushed early and trailed at the end of the first, 20-5.
But they reeled off the first 10 points of the second to close the gap to 20-15 before the Chiefs went on a mini run to take a 29-17 lead into the half.
Greybull shot just 7 of 32 in the first half, and with their shots not falling, and the Chiefs not having to take the ball out of bounds, the Buffs were unable to do much damage with their full-court press.
“You can’t shoot like that against Wyoming Indian and expect to stay in the game for long,” said Prather. “But we played well in the second quarter. The tempo was more to our liking. We wanted to play fast, but under control.
“Sometimes that is a hard adjustment for teams to make, when you see somebody playing that style of ball better than you are — and Wyoming Indian is better at that than we are.”
From a deficit of 12, the Buffs were able to claw within seven in the second half, but no closer.
“We weren’t going down there with the idea of wanting a moral victory,” Prather said. “We wanted to play them as well as we could. We outrebounded them, which was a focus all week in practice, we held them to their lowest point total of the season, and we outscored them over the last three quarters.
“Unfortunately for us, they do keep score in all four,” he laughed.
Sean Sylvester led the Buffs with 21, while Hayden Goton and Austin Frazier chipped in 13 and 11, respectively.
The Chiefs got 18 from Slade Spoonhunter.
Prather said the Buffs benefited from playing in “a playoff atmosphere,” and that the team learned from its 33 turnovers that “we still have a ways to go in terms of taking care of the basketball.
“But at the same time, we also learned that we can be a good rebounding team when we focus and get after it.”
The previous night, the Buffs had to make do without starter Jordan Jolley and reserve Travis Sylvester, both of whom were ill, as well as Ryan Winkler, who was out with an injury.
Against Riverside, they weren’t needed.
In fact, Sean Sylvester singlehandedly outscored the Rebels.
The senior guard had a game for the ages, finishing with 31 points. He made 12 of his 15 field goal attempts, including three triples, was 4 of 5 from the line, and had 16 steals and 11 forced turnovers.
“He was a dominant force out there,” said Prather.
The Buffs led 12-2 after one and 34-10 at the half en route to the victory.
Dillon McCoy chipped in 13 in a supporting role for the Buffs, who improved to 7-0 in conference play with the win.
“We were a little short in numbers, so we brought up (freshman) Wyatt Good to give us some depth,” Prather said. “It was a situation where I thought we played about as well as we were capable of playing. Everybody got a lot of minutes, which was a key, and we were able to rest some people we knew would be playing the majority of minutes against Wyoming Indian.”

This week
The Buffs have just three regular season games remaining, including a road test Friday night at Rocky Mountain and a home game Saturday against Big Horn before the finale next week against Tongue River.
With a win over Rocky, the Buffs would finish perfect in league play — and that was a goal going into the season.  The conference championship is already locked up, by virtue of their win last week over Riverside.
The Buffs crushed Big Horn 58-33 in December. “They are a big, physical team that likes to  play a different tempo than we do,” Prather said. “It’ll be an opportunity for us to practice against a team that likes to slow things down.”

Riverside      2   8   6 10 — 26
Greybull    12 22 19 17 — 70
RIVERSIDE — Getzfreid 2 0-0 4, Koch 1 0-0 2, Herman 1 0-0 2, Jares 1 1-2 4, Miller 1 1-2 3, Miller 0 1-4 1, Wood 5 0-0 10.  Totals 11 3-8 26.
GREYBULL — Dillon McCoy 5 3-6 13, Austin Frazier 2 0-0 4, Sean Sylvester 12 4-5 31, Andrew Shaver 2 0-0 4, Braden Miller 1 0-0 3, Wyatt Good 2 0-0 4, Seth Hoblit 0 1-4 1, Cody Duffy 2 0-0 4, Hayden Goton 3 0-0 6.  Totals 29-65 8-15 70.
3-POINT GOALS — Jares; Sylvester 3, Miller.  REBOUNDS — Greybull 38 (McCoy 8).  ASSISTS — Greybull 19 (Sylvester, Shaver 4).  STEALS — Greybull 27 (Sylvester 16).  TURNOVERS — Greybull 14.

Greybull      5 12 18 26 — 61
Wyo. Indian    20   9 23 17 — 69
GREYBULL — McCoy 1 2-2 4, Frazier 5 0-0 11, Sylvester 7 7-11 21, Miller 4 0-0 9, Neil Getzfreid 1 0-0 3, Goton 5 3-3 13.  Totals 23-59 12-16 61.
WYOMING INDIAN — Redman 1 3-4 5, Her Many Horses 2 1-6 5, Underwood 4 2-2 10, Spoonhunter 6 4-4 18, Sounding Sides 6 0-1 14, Moss 2 0-0 5, Willow 3 1-2 7, Smith 1 3-4 5. Totals 25 14-23 69.
3-POINT GOALS — Frazier, Miller, Getzfreid.  REBOUNDS — Greybull 39 (Goton 10).  ASSISTS — Greybull 13 (Travis Sylvester 4).  STEALS — Greybull 17 (Sylvester 5).  TURNOVERS — Greybull 33.