Sources - Wyoming hiring Sundance Wicks as basketball coach - ESPN

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 the coach for Green Bay, where he led the Phoenix to an 18-14 record — 15 wins more than the previous season, which was one of the biggest turnarounds in college basketball.

Wicks, a native of Gillette, Wyoming, was a former assistant with the Cowboys from 2020 to 2023. He also was the coach 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 over four seasons with Wyoming.

Wyoming's program has made 16 NCAA tournament appearances. Its most recent came under Linder in 2022, with Wicks as an assistant, when Wyoming lost in the First Four. Prior to that appearance, Wyoming last reached the NCAA tournament in 2015 under Larry Shyatt.

Wicks' résumé includes extensive Division I assistant coaching experience, with stops at San Francisco, Northern Illinois and Colorado.

He led Green Bay to instant success in his lone season there, as the Phoenix finished third in the Horizon League and he was named the conference's coach of the year. The team's 13 conference wins was the most by the Phoenix since the 2013-14 season.

Wicks also won the Joe B. Hall National Coach of the Year, which is presented every year to the top first-year head coach in Division I college basketball.

The improvement at Green Bay showed both in the win column and in the efficiency metrics, as the Phoenix improved to 230th last season under Wicks in the KenPom.com rankings after being third worst (No. 361) in 2022-23.