In eight seasons as head coach at Wisconsin, Bo Ryan has unquestionably established himself and the Badger program among the elite in all of college basketball. Under his direction, Wisconsin has compiled five Big Ten titles, the five winningest seasons in school history and an NCAA tournament appearance every season.
With a career mark of 193-73 (.726), Ryan already ranks third on Wisconsin’s all-time wins list (behind basketball hall of famers Bud Foster and Walter Meanwell).
BIG TEN’S BEST
Wisconsin’s success in Big Ten play under Ryan is unparalleled. His .712 (94-38) winning percentage in conference games is the best of any Big Ten coach in history, surpassing Bob Knight’s career mark of .700 (353-151).
In 2002, Ryan’s first season, Wisconsin earned a share of the Big Ten title for the first time since 1947. The next year, UW won the title outright, securing back-to-back championships for the first time since 1923 and 1924. Not to be outdone, Ryan led the Badgers to their first Big Ten tournament title in 2004. In 2008, Ryan and UW doubled up, winning the regular-season and tournament crowns in the same season for the first time in school history.
He is the first coach in conference history to lead a team to at least 11 Big Ten wins in each of his first four seasons. Prior to his arrival in 2001, UW had won at least 11 conference games just seven times, and only once since 1941. The Badgers have at least 10 conference wins in seven of his eight seasons, including a school-record 16 in 2008.
With Ryan at the helm, the Badgers have posted an above .500 conference record in every season and have never finished outside the top four in the Big Ten standings.
500-WIN CLUB
In 2006-07, Ryan joined the exclusive 500-win club, making him one of 18 active Division I head coaches with at least 500 wins. With a career record of 576-176 (.766), Ryan is second only to North Carolina’s Roy Williams in terms of winning percentage among coaches with at least 500 victories.
WINNING AT WISCONSIN
The accomplishments during Ryan’s first eight seasons are varied and impressive. He has led UW to the five winningest seasons in school history, including back-to-back school-records with 30 wins in 2006-07 and 31 victories in 2007-08. Prior to Ryan’s arrival in Madison, Wisconsin had never won more than 22 games in a season. Ryan’s teams have averaged 24.1 wins in his eight seasons.
The Badgers have appeared in the NCAA tournament in each of Ryan’s eight seasons, advancing to three Sweet 16s and the Elite Eight in 2005. In 2006-07, UW earned a No. 2 seed, the highest in school history, followed by a No. 3 seed in 2008-09. Ryan’s 11 NCAA tournament wins are a school record and he is the first coach in UW history to lead a team to multiple Sweet 16 appearances.
Last season Ryan helped engineer one of the greatest turnarounds in recent memory. Wisconsin became the first team in history to bounce back from a six-game conference losing streak to make the NCAA tournament as an at-large selection. As a 12th-seed, the Badgers upset No. 5 seeded Florida State before falling to No. 4 Xavier in round two.
HOME DOMINANCE
In Ryan’s eight seasons, the Kohl Center has become one of the toughest places to play in America. The Badgers have compiled a 120-10 (.923) home record under Ryan, including a 61-5 mark in Big Ten games. Over the last eight seasons, that is the fifth-best home record in the country. From Dec. 7, 2002 to Jan. 24, 2005 Wisconsin did not lose a home game, setting a school record with 38 consecutive wins, a streak that was the longest in the country.
REPRESENTING TEAM USA
In the spring of 2009 Ryan was humbled and honored to be selected as the head coach of Team USA at the World University Games in Serbia. Appointed by the USA Basketball Men’s Junior National Team Committee, chaired by Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, Ryan lead some of college basketball’s top players into international play in the July of 2009. The team brought home the bronze medal after posting a 6-1 record. Ryan's Team USA defeated gold medal-winning Serbia in the second round, but a one-point loss to Russia in the semifinals forced the U.S. into a third-place finish.
Held in high esteem by colleagues, Ryan has previously won two gold medals as an assistant coach, first with Virginia head coach Pete Gillen and the gold medal-winning North squad at the 1993 U.S. Olympic Festival, and also with former Atlanta Hawks coach Lon Kruger and the United States gold medal winner at the 1995 World University Games.
RYAN PRODUCES PROS
Individual success has followed team success as a number of Ryan’s players have earned notable honors and gone onto to successful professional basketball careers. UW had a first-team All-Big Ten pick in each of Ryan’s first seven seasons (Kirk Penney – 2002-03, Devin Harris – 2004, Mike Wilkinson – 2005, Alando Tucker – 2006-07 and Brian Butch – 2008). That is tied for the third-longest streak in Big Ten history. Only Indiana (11 years: 1979-89) and Illinois (eight years: 1951-58) have had longer streaks.
Harris, the fifth pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, was also named the 2004 Big Ten Player of the Year and was a consensus second-team All-American. He was a finalist for national player of the year and finished second for the Bob Cousy Award. In 2009, Harris was selected for his first NBA All-Star game after leading the New Jersey Nets with 21.3 points per game and 6.9 assists per game.
In 2006-07, Tucker became just the third consensus first-team All-American in school history, winning the Big Ten Player of the Year and Senior CLASS awards and joining Kevin Durant of Texas as the only players to be finalists for every major national player of the year award. Tucker was a first-round pick of the Phoenix Suns in the 2007 NBA Draft.
During his tenure in Madison, Ryan has coached three Wisconsin players that have reached the NBA and another 11 who have gone on to play professionally overseas.
BACK-TO-BACK 30-WIN SEASONS
From 2006 to 2008, Ryan’s Badgers put together a remarkable two-year run. Wisconsin became a fixture in the top 10 and was one of just five teams in the country to win at least 30 games in each of the two seasons. UW’s 61-11 (.847) record over that span trailed only Memphis, Kansas, North Carolina and UCLA.
Despite being unranked and picked to finish in the middle of the pack in the Big Ten, the 2007-08 Badgers embarked on a record-setting season, establishing school marks for both wins (31) and conference wins (16). UW won its third Big Ten regular-season title in seven years and added the Big Ten tournament crown, winning both championships in the same season for the first time. A No. 3 seed in the NCAA tournament, Wisconsin advanced to the Sweet 16 for the third time in the last six years.
The 2007-08 success was built on the tremendous season Wisconsin enjoyed in 2006-07. That year the Badgers posted a then-school-record 30 wins and also spent 17 weeks ranked in the top 10. On Feb. 19, 2007, the program achieved its first-ever No. 1 ranking. The Badgers’ 13 Big Ten wins were then the most in school history and earned them a second-place finish in the conference. They advanced to the finals of the Big Ten tournament for the third time in four years. Wisconsin was a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament, the best seed in school history.
COACH OF THE YEAR
Bo Ryan and the words Coach of the Year go together like a pick-and-roll. After winning back-to-back Big Ten Coach of the Year honors in his first two seasons at Wisconsin, Ryan burst onto the national coaching landscape following the 2006-07 season. That year Ryan was recognized by a number of national organizations. He received the 2007 Clair Bee Coach of the Year Award, which honors the active men’s Division I basketball coach who has made the most significant positive contributions to his sport during the preceding year. Ryan also received the Adolph Rupp Cup as the national coach of the year from the Commonwealth Athletic Club of Kentucky. He was also a finalist for a number of other national Coach of the Year awards, including the Naismith Award.
He followed that up by being mentioned as a finalist for a number of national Coach of the Year awards in 2007-08. He was named the Jim Phelan Coach of the Year by collegeinsider.com and was the runner-up to Drake’s Keno Davis for A.P. Coach of the Year.
RYAN’S EARLY YEARS AT UW
In his first season at the reins of the Badgers program, 2001-02, Ryan led an undermanned UW team to an improbable share of its first Big Ten championship in 55 years. Ryan had to juggle a lineup consisting of only eight scholarship players, including five players that had seen very limited or no action at all on the collegiate level. The team would win 15 of its final 20 regular-season games en route to a share of the Big Ten title. One of those victories, a 64-56 win over Iowa was Ryan’s 400th as a collegiate coach.
In just his second season in Madison, Ryan and the Badgers set a school record with 24 wins and earned an outright Big Ten title and a trip to the NCAA tournament Sweet 16. The outright conference championship was UW’s first since 1947 and the 12 league wins tied a school record set in 1912 and tied in 1914. Ryan earned his second Big Ten Coach of the Year award, becoming the first coach in league history to be so honored in each of his first two seasons.
In 2003-04, Ryan led Wisconsin to a 25-7 record, setting a school record for wins in a season and posting the school’s highest winning percentage since the 1941 team won the NCAA title with a 20-3 mark. After posting a 12-4 mark in the Big Ten, UW went on to win the Big Ten tournament for the first time in school history, defeating No. 1 seed Illinois, 70-53, in the final. For the second time in school history, UW was ranked in the A.P. poll every week during the season. Those accomplishments came in spite of UW losing its second-leading scorer, Alando Tucker, for all but four games and having just four players see action in all 32 games.
In 2004-05, Ryan was named one of 20 finalists for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award. Despite returning just one starter from the previous year’s team, he led the Badgers to an appearance in the 2005 NCAA Tournament Elite Eight and a school record-tying 25 wins. UW finished third in the Big Ten with an 11-5 mark and advanced to the Big Ten tournament title game for the second consecutive season.
GUARDIAN OF THE GAME
Ryan has experience as a Division I head and assistant coach, as well as a Division III head coach and is well-respected throughout the college basketball world. At the 2004 Final Four, he was honored with the NABC Guardians of the Game Award for Service. The goal of the Guardians of the Game program is to focus attention on the positive aspects of basketball and the role coaches play in the lives of student-athletes, in addition to the contributions coaches make to their communities.
In 2009, the NABC presented Bo Ryan with the Outstanding Service Award “for his actions inside and outside the lines of coaching that have distinguished him as a valuable members of his community.” Ryan is one of college basketball's most active participants when it comes to improving the game. In the past Ryan has served on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Issues Committee and on the Academic Progress Rate committee. Ryan currently serves on the Board of Directors for both the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) and the Wisconsin Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA).
RYAN’S TWO SEASONS AT UW-MILWAUKEE
Ryan came to Wisconsin from UW-Milwaukee, where he spent two seasons coaching the Panthers to their first back-to-back winning seasons in eight years. UWM, 8-19 overall the year before Ryan arrived, was 15-14 and 15-13, respectively, in Ryan’s two years at the controls. The program also experienced a 161-percent home attendance increase in his first season.
FOUR NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS AT UW-PLATTEVILLE
It was during his 15-year tenure at UW-Platteville (1984-99) that Ryan firmly established himself as one of the country’s top coaches. He guided the Division III school to a phenomenal 353-76 (.822) overall record and, in his final 12 seasons, the Pioneers:
• Won four national championships (1991, 1995, 1998 and 1999)
• Compiled a 314-37 (.895) record
• Won eight WIAC titles
• Were the winningest NCAA men’s basketball team of the 1990s (all divisions) with a 266-26 (.908) record
• Compiled a 30-5 NCAA Division III tournament mark
• Never won fewer than 23 games
• Compiled a 157-7 (.957) home record
• Set the all-time single-season Division III scoring defense mark (47.5 ppg) in 1996-97
Ryan was named the National Association of Basketball Coaches Division III Coach of the Year four times. In addition he was tabbed the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s Coach of the Year on six occasions.
Ryan took over at UW-Platteville following eight seasons (1976-84) as an assistant coach to Bill Cofield and Steve Yoder at Wisconsin.
PERSONAL FILE
Ryan was born on Dec. 20, 1947, just outside of Philadelphia in Chester, Pa. At Chester High School, he was a football teammate of current San Diego Chargers defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell. He attended Wilkes (Pa.) University, where he starred as a high-scoring guard and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1969. Ryan was inducted into the Wilkes Athletic Hall of Fame in 2003 and the Delaware County Chapter of the Pennsylvania Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
Upon completion of his collegiate career, Ryan did graduate work at Villanova before accepting an assistant coaching position at the College of Racine (Wis.). Ryan accepted his first head coaching job at Philadelphia’s Sun Valley High School, where he was named the Delaware County Coach of the Year after directing his team to a second-place finish in the Philadelphia Suburban League. His 1976 club was the first Sun Valley High team to qualify for the state tournament.
Ryan authored his fourth book in 2008, an autobiography titled: Another Hill to Climb. He has also written three books on coaching basketball: Passing and Catching: A Lost Art; How to Run the Swing Offense; and Applying and Attacking Pressure. He has produced five basketball instructional videos as well.
Ryan and his wife, Kelly, have five children: Megan, Will, Matt, Brenna and Mairin. Ryan’s first two grandchildrenwere born in the summer of 2008.
UW-PLATTEVILLE NAMES BO RYAN COURT
On Jan. 27, 2007, the University of Wisconsin–Platteville honored Bo Ryan by naming the Williams Fieldhouse basketball court “Bo Ryan Court.” Ryan coached the Pioneers to four national titles and was named national coach of the year four times.
“I was very fortunate to be at UW–Platteville during a time of great support from the fans and community as well as tremendous players and assistant coaches,” Ryan said. “We were the recipients of a lot of cooperation and goodwill throughout the Platteville community. My family and I will cherish the 15 years we spent in Platteville the rest of our lives.”
Ryan made UW–Platteville a premier basketball program during his 15-year tenure, which included four NCAA Division III national championships. He recorded a 353-76 record at UW–Platteville from 1984–99 and his .822 winning percentage was the best in the history of NCAA Division III basketball.
Ryan guided the Pioneers to eight conference titles and nine straight NCAA Div. III playoff appearances. UW-Platteville won national titles in 1991, 1995, 1998 and 1999. His 1992 squad also advanced to the Final Four, where it placed third. In all, the Pioneers were 30-5 in NCAA tournament play.
IN GOOD COMPANY
Bo Ryan has led Wisconsin to success not seen in Madison for a long time, specifically the time of Walter “Doc” Meanwell. Meanwell coached the Badgers for 20 seasons in the early part of the 20th century. His teams won eight Big Ten titles and lost just one game during his first three seasons. Meanwell was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1959.
Many of the Badgers’ accomplishments under Ryan have not been matched since the days of Meanwell. Among them are:
• The 2002 and 2003 Badgers won back-to-back Big Ten titles for the first time since 1923-24.
• Ryan reached 100 career victories at Wisconsin (138 games) faster than anyone in school history besides Meanwell (111 games).
• The 2003-04 Badgers were the first UW team to record an undefeated season at home since Meanwell’s team went 12-0 in 1929-30.
• The 2006-07 Badgers’ 7-0 start to the Big Ten season was UW’s best since going 12-0 in league play in 1914.
Ryan’s Badgers have also accomplished a couple things Meanwell’s teams did not.
• The 2002-05 Badgers were the first to win at least 11 conference games four seasons in a row.
• Wisconsin’s 94 Big Ten victories over the past eight seasons are the most in school history, surpassing the 1911-18 total by 16.
• The 2006-07 Badgers’ 21-1 start surpassed Meanwell’s 1915-16 team (20-1) for the best start in school history.