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Bo Ryan’s Forthcoming Retirement Ends An Era At Wisconsin

By Matt Johnson

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Behind the scenes of a scintillating ride to this year’s Final Four, the understated question of Bo Ryan and his future with the Wisconsin Badgers disappeared.

Rather than wonder how much longer their gruff bench-boss would continue patrolling the Kohl Center sidelines, Badger fans were instead analyzing how their squad matched up with Kentucky and then Duke. The only thing Wisconsin backers knew at that time was Ryan was on the downslope of a Hall Of Fame level coaching career.

Nearly three months removed from the culmination of arguably Wisconsin’s greatest basketball season, word arrives that Ryan will end his tenure in Madison following the 2015-16 campaign.

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There is little doubt Ryan’s forthcoming departure from Wisconsin will evoke memories near and dear for the faithful. The 68-year-old’s legacy currently includes 357 wins, four Big 10 Regular Season titles, three Conference Tournament crowns, and 14 straight trips to the NCAA Tourney.

For Badger fans, the Ryan era has come to embody excellence. His teams play disciplined defense, efficient offense, and do nothing but win. Under Ryan’s guidance, Wisconsin has never won less than 19 games while placing in the top four of the Big 10 every year since 2001-2002. With one more season left to pile up even more numbers, Ryan sets a high-bar for whomever Athletic Director Barry Alvarez decides is a suitable the replacement.

Numbers aside, Ryan’s most admirable quality has always been consistency. The names donning cardinal and white have always changed while results remained stayed the same. For programs like Kentucky and Duke, which recruit enough five-star athletes to impress NBA executives on a yearly basis, such consistency is usually taken for granted. After all, it’s a lot easier to win when you simply have better players than everybody else.

Ryan has never done it that way however. Rather than stock up on the latest group of ballyhooed individuals tearing up national AAU events, Ryan has always preferred four-year players with long-term visions of success.

That’s not to say Ryan hasn’t found a few uber-talented kids along the way (recent first round draft-pick Sam Dekker certainly springs to mind). But Ryan’s bread and butter was always getting the most out of what everyone else overlooked.

No better example exists than recent NBA Lottery Pick Frank Kaminsky, who parlayed two nondescript seasons as a freshman and sophomore into stardom as a junior and senior. Kaminsky’s emergence from obscurity may be the latest in Ryan’s saga of player development, but it certainly isn’t the only one. There’s also the tales of Alando Tucker and Devin Harris for Ryan to hang his hat on when it comes to player development. In an era of endless quick fixes and short-cuts, Ryan has simply rolled up his sleeves and gone to work, one day at a time.

As he takes those final walks along the Kohl Center sidelines in 2015-16, college basketball’s establishment will no doubt shower Ryan with the praise always reserved for one of the game’s coaching elites. Hopefully some of them will not only recall all the hardware and success Ryan has achieved over the years, but what it took for a small-town Pennsylvanian to achieve them. Just don’t be surprised if Ryan appears indifferent; in his eyes, there will still be work to do.

Next: SEC Recruiting Haul: Auburn Tigers

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