WYOMING BASKETBALL IS THE NEW CINDERELLA SO HERE ARE SOME WYOMING FACTS

The Wyoming Cowboys entered the Mountain West Conference Tournament on Wednesday as the league’s cellar dwellers. With a record of 7-23, it was all but assumed that they would be dispatched with ease as had been done throughout the year. The season would finally, mercifully end.

Two days and two wins later, the Cowboys are riding strong into the MWC Tournament semifinals as not only the first 11 seed to ever win a game in this event’s history but also as the first double digit seed to ever make it to the tournament’s semifinals.

While the Cowboys will be doing their own sort of celebrating, it’s worth taking this moment to reflect on the 44th state and its finer qualities, including everything it does better than your state.

Women’s Suffrage

[AP US History voice] This year is the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which gave American women the right to vote. Obviously that historic marker will be celebrated throughout the country.

Yet, after taking a step back for a second and pondering that number, it is rather harrowing to remember that women have only been allowed to vote nationwide for a century. However, in 1869, Wyoming placed itself on the front lines of the women’s suffrage movement, granting them the right to vote after passing what was originally introduced as a joke bill:

Democrat William H. Bright, who supposedly had been present as a dinner guest at Morris’ home, won a seat in the legislature and introduced a bill granting women the right to vote. Although the legislators are said to have treated the legislation as a joke, they approved it nonetheless. To their surprise, Governor Campbell signed it into law. The summoning, three months later, of the first women jurors to duty in Laramie, attracted international attention.

Proud of its status as the first state to grant women such a fundamental right, Wyoming is officially known as “The Equality State.”

National Parks

At time of publish, there are 62 National Parks in the United States. Two of the parks in the top 10 most visited are located in Wyoming. Since Wyoming only has an estimated 578,759 people, I think that gives it the distinction of having the most National Parks per capita in the United States. (At a whopping one park per every 289,380 people!)

Home to both Grand Teton and Yellowstone, the latter of which being the first National Park in the entire country, Wyoming is arguably the most naturally gorgeous place in the entire United States. Would you like more proof?

Photo by: VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Photo by Sandy Huffaker/Corbis via Getty Images

I swear this next one isn’t a screen grab from Red Dead Redemption 2.

Photo credit should read MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP via Getty Images

Photo by: Ron Reznick/VW Pics/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

Photo by Patrick Gorski/NurPhoto via Getty Images

Plus, everyone has seen Old Faithful, the big natural super soaker [am being told it is also called a geyser]. But the most important thing about Yellowstone National Park is that, if it feels like it, it can decimate all of human civilization in like one afternoon thanks to the super-volcano it’s housing under our feet.

US National Parks Service

The National Parks Service doesn’t exactly paint a rosy picture:

This eruption 2.1 million years ago—among the largest volcanic eruptions known to man—coated 5,790 square miles with ash, as far away as Missouri. The total volcanic material ejected is estimated to have been 6,000 times the volume of material ejected during the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens, in Washington.

Beating Steve Alford

It has been the better part of a decade since Steve Alford last coached in an MWC Tournament game, and the Wyoming Cowboys made sure to give him a warm welcome in his return to the league’s biggest event.

The current coach of Nevada likely thought the odds for his team to make at least the MWC Tournament semifinals increased exponentially after the Cowboys took down the Colorado State Rams on Wednesday. He was wrong. Wyoming won despite trailing for most of the game:

Kenpom

Many people don’t like Steve Alford. This important piece from our friends at Crimson Quarry explains why.

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Wyoming rules. It is God’s country.