Many people are caught by surprise when I mention that Wyoming-football.com has the results of every state basketball tournament game listed on the website, as well.
Although the basketball results don’t paint as complete a picture as the football results do (the basketball results are state tournament only), they do allow us to see how teams who qualified for state finished their respective seasons.
With the basketball regular season starting this week, I’d like to go a bit deeper, though, and find the record of every Wyoming state basketball champion.
I have the records of all state champions since 1999, but prior to that it gets a little (OK, a lot) shaky.
One of the reasons I want to do this is to have a little fun in the offseason with this blog. I’d like to post, for example, every undefeated state champion the state has ever had. In all, I have the records for 14 girls basketball teams and 13 boys teams that have finished a season unbeaten (updated 11-28-12; thanks to Cory Griffith for his help with the Lusk info!). But I know the list is incomplete.
Here is my list to this point, in reverse chronological order broken down by gender:
Girls
Snake River 2012 (28-0)
Tongue River 2005 (23-0)
Douglas 2005 (26-0)
Big Horn 2001 (26-0)
Burlington 1998 (24-0)
Mountain View 1998 (24-0)
Tongue River 1997 (22-0)
Lyman 1995 (23-0)
Gillette 1991 (23-0)
Lusk 1991 (22-0)
Lusk 1990 (21-0)
Riverton 1984 (23-0)
Rock Springs 1980 (24-0)
Lander 1978 (24-0)
Boys
Snake River 2012 (28-0)
Big Horn 2011 (28-0)
Thermopolis 2004 (25-0)
Cheyenne Central 1991 (23-0)
Torrington 1987 (23-0)
Southeast 1981 (22-0)
Glenrock 1978 (23-0)
Mountain View 1977 (24-0)
Lusk 1969 (23-0)
Goshen Hole 1967 (23-0)
Cheyenne Central 1962 (27-0)
University Prep 1961 (25-0)
St. Stephens 1960 (28-0)
I’m also compiling an unofficial list of state basketball champs who finished the season with losing records. So far, I’ve only found two: St. Stephens boys in 2004 (11-17) and Pine Bluffs girls in 1994 (10-12).
Eventually, I do want the records of ALL state championship-winning teams, but being in Wyoming does limit my ability to research this much. … Nevertheless, it’s a project that’s been on the backburner for awhile and I wanted to put it out there to share.
First of all — do any readers out there know of any undefeated state champions that aren’t on the lists above? Post a comment below, and if you can, link to some documentation (scan of a newspaper article, for example, or a link to a site where I could verify a record). If you don’t want to post, you’re always welcome to email me information at pschmiedt@yahoo.com.
Conversely, if you happen to know the record of a state champ I have listed without a record, feel free to let me know (with as much documentation as you can provide to verify). Even if they weren’t undefeated, I would eventually like to know the records for all the state championship teams. First, double check to make sure I don’t already have the record listed, and then let me know!
Thanks!
–patrick
It just so happens i was working on the Tiger basketball previews and can help with your questions.
Lusk boys state champs:1968-69 23-0 (Dick Price head coach),1969-70 20-3 (Price),1981-82 20-2 (Mike Hart),
2007-08 25-3 (Rich Murray).
Lusk girls state champs:1990 21-0 (Craig Anderson), 1990-91 22-0 (Anderson), ’91-92 18-2 (Deb Doctor), ’93-94 21-2, (Doctor), ’95-96 20-3 (Deb Murray), ’98-99 20-3 (Murray).
so to answer your initial question, Lusk has three unbeaten state champs. my verification is from the team booklets i get each year from the coaches, and there’s always crazy old history in them.
Fantastic! Thanks for the help, Cory.
–patrick
BTW, Cory, do you know how long the Lusk girls winning streak ended up reaching in the 1990-92 era?
–patrick
I had to get verification on the Lusk streaks from the stat rat. The girls won 43 in a row after losing the ’89 state championship game. They won the next 43 before losing the very first game of the 92 season.
the boys streak of 30 went from a third place win at the ’68 state tourney through the perfect ’69 season and the first six games of the ’70 season.