Green Bay hires Wyoming assistant Sundance Wicks as coach

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — Green Bay has hired Wyoming assistant Sundance Wicks to take over its men’s basketball program.

Athletic director Josh Moon announced the hiring Tuesday. Green Bay had been seeking a permanent replacement for Will Ryan, who was fired Jan. 24 after going 15-61 in 2½ seasons.

Wicks has been an assistant coach at Wyoming the last three seasons after posting a 30-32 record as the head coach at Division II program Missouri Western State from 2018-20.

Missouri Western State’s 2019-20 team went 18-14, producing the program’s first winning season since 2009-10.

Wicks also has been an assistant coach at Colorado (2006-07), Northern Illinois (2007-11), San Francisco (2015-16) and Northern State (2016-18). He was the skill instructor and director of the Arizona Power Basketball Academy from 2011-15.

Wicks will try to rejuvenate a Horizon League program that has gone 16-71 over the last three seasons. Green Bay hasn’t reached the NCAA Tournament since 2016, which marked the last of three straight seasons in which the Phoenix won at least 23 games.

Green Bay went 3-29 this season. Freddie Owens posted a 1-10 record as interim head coach after the exit of Ryan, the son of former Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan.

“There is a history of winning and a tradition of excellence that is dormant right now, not dead, and we will RISE that tradition from its ashes,” Wicks said in a university statement. ___

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