Wyoming has agreed to a five-year deal to hire Sundance Wicks as the Cowboys' new men's basketball coach, sources told ESPN on Sunday.
Wicks spent last season as Green Bay's coach, where he led Phoenix to an 18-14 record, 15 more wins than the previous season, which was one of the biggest turnarounds in college basketball.
Wicks, a native of Gillette, Wyoming, was a former Cowboys assistant from 2020 to 2023. He also coached at Missouri Western from 2018 to 2020.
He replaces Jeff Linder, who has been in the process of finalizing a deal in recent days to become the top assistant coach at Texas Tech after going 63-59 in four seasons at Wyoming.
The Wyoming program has made 16 NCAA tournament appearances. The most recent came under Linder in 2022, with Wicks as an assistant, when Wyoming lost in the First Four. Before that appearance, Wyoming last made the NCAA tournament in 2015 under Larry Shyatt.
Wicks' resume includes extensive experience as a Division I assistant coach, with stops in San Francisco, Northern Illinois and Colorado.
He led Green Bay to instant success in his only season there, as Phoenix finished third in the Horizon League and was named conference coach of the year. The team's 13 conference wins were the most for Phoenix since the 2013-14 season.
Wicks also won the Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year Award, given each year to the best first-year head coach in Division I college basketball.
The improvement in Green Bay showed up in both the win column and efficiency metrics, as Phoenix improved to 230th last season under Wicks in the KenPom.com rankings after being third-worst (No. 361). in 2022-23.
