Linesetter
Well-Known Member
ANAHEIM, Calif. — Let me introduce you to college basketball's invisible genius. His name is Bo. Oh, you know Bo. But we tend not to notice him, because Coach K hordes the championship rings, the silver tongue of John Calipari drops sweeter sound bites and Rick Pitino wears shinier shoes.
His name is Bo. He is a voice of reason in March Madness.
And there's one more thing: Bo Ryan of Wisconsin just might be the best college basketball coach in America.
Bo loves fundamentals more than you love Mom's chocolate-chip cookies fresh from the oven. Ryan is old school. His hair is gray. He teaches the nuances of the pump fake with enthusiasm Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning would admire.
"Having played quarterback, pump fakes work. It's not that hard, and yet it's amazing how many people don't use them," Ryan said Thursday, after his team demolished Baylor 69-52 in the West Regional semifinals.
Thanks to 19 points by 7-foot junior Frank Kaminsky and defense that's harsher than a Wisconsin winter, the Badgers are one of the last eight teams standing in the NCAA Tournament.
Oh, you know this guy. Bo looks like your uncle who worked in the steel mill, back when America made stuff from steel rather than computer chips. Ryan is definitely the most accomplished Division I coach who has never taken a team to the Final Four.
"I'd be honored to be part of that," Kaminsky said.
Baylor never had a shot against Wisconsin. Talk about lost in the woods: The Bears missed nearly 70 percent of their 57 field-goal attempts.
"The one thing you can't control as a coach if they go in or out," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, a great recruiter who wouldn't know a teaching moment if a great coach diagrammed it for him on a white board.
His name is Bo. Until this season, his offense has traditionally moved slower than that interminable TSA security line at the airport. Bor-ing. But get this: The Badgers have gone to the Big Dance in each of the 13 seasons since Ryan landed the Wisconsin job at the over-the-hill age of 53.
Ryan does not sell million-dollar fantasies to his players. Unlike Calipari, who has built the NBA's swankiest green room in Lexington, Ky., a hotshot prep prospect should not enroll at Wisconsin if his dream is one-and-done.
Here is what Ryan seeks in a recruit: "Good students, hard workers, good listeners. People that are pretty focused on what's going to happen in the next 60 years as well as they are focused on what's going to happen in the next couple years, because that's what we're preparing people for as coaches. We're preparing them for when they're in their 30s, 40s, 60s, 70s and 80s."
This guy sells life lessons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm making Ryan sound like Ward Cleaver. And your eye roll shouts: How quaint.
It's easy to get cynical when watching the NCAA tourney, which is a license to print money, from the tailor who designs Pitino's suits to the geek who runs your office pool.
Ryan, however, has never grown jaded, even as he toiled for years far removed from the spotlight as coach of Wisconsin-Platteville.
When rival coaches shake a head in disbelief when told Bo encourages Wisconsin players to skip practice to attend class, Ryan replies: "Don't you at your school?"
Hey, Ryan not only speaks in paint-it-on-a-locker-room-poster platitudes such as "Scold to mold; praise to raise," he actually believes those words with every ounce of his soul. Players buy the sincerity.
"You have to be honest with them," Ryan said. "You can't tell that kid sitting with the remote on the couch who's eating potato chips bag by bag he's the greatest thing that ever lived without kind of mentioning that maybe (he) ought to get off the couch."
These kids today. They have 1,000 distractions, but tend to look up and listen to a mentor who keeps it real. While Ryan might be corny, he's 1,000 percent genuine, and his sincere mission is to teach.
His 703 victories as a college coach have simply been a happy byproduct of that mission.
Bo knows.
Maybe we all should put down the smart phone, give our texting thumbs a rest, pay attention to Bo Ryan and try to learn a little something while he sneaks in life lessons given as deliberately as Wisconsin passes, cuts and moves forward in March Madness.
His name is Bo. He is a voice of reason in March Madness.
And there's one more thing: Bo Ryan of Wisconsin just might be the best college basketball coach in America.
Bo loves fundamentals more than you love Mom's chocolate-chip cookies fresh from the oven. Ryan is old school. His hair is gray. He teaches the nuances of the pump fake with enthusiasm Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning would admire.
"Having played quarterback, pump fakes work. It's not that hard, and yet it's amazing how many people don't use them," Ryan said Thursday, after his team demolished Baylor 69-52 in the West Regional semifinals.
Thanks to 19 points by 7-foot junior Frank Kaminsky and defense that's harsher than a Wisconsin winter, the Badgers are one of the last eight teams standing in the NCAA Tournament.
Oh, you know this guy. Bo looks like your uncle who worked in the steel mill, back when America made stuff from steel rather than computer chips. Ryan is definitely the most accomplished Division I coach who has never taken a team to the Final Four.
"I'd be honored to be part of that," Kaminsky said.
Baylor never had a shot against Wisconsin. Talk about lost in the woods: The Bears missed nearly 70 percent of their 57 field-goal attempts.
"The one thing you can't control as a coach if they go in or out," said Baylor coach Scott Drew, a great recruiter who wouldn't know a teaching moment if a great coach diagrammed it for him on a white board.
His name is Bo. Until this season, his offense has traditionally moved slower than that interminable TSA security line at the airport. Bor-ing. But get this: The Badgers have gone to the Big Dance in each of the 13 seasons since Ryan landed the Wisconsin job at the over-the-hill age of 53.
Ryan does not sell million-dollar fantasies to his players. Unlike Calipari, who has built the NBA's swankiest green room in Lexington, Ky., a hotshot prep prospect should not enroll at Wisconsin if his dream is one-and-done.
Here is what Ryan seeks in a recruit: "Good students, hard workers, good listeners. People that are pretty focused on what's going to happen in the next 60 years as well as they are focused on what's going to happen in the next couple years, because that's what we're preparing people for as coaches. We're preparing them for when they're in their 30s, 40s, 60s, 70s and 80s."
This guy sells life lessons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm making Ryan sound like Ward Cleaver. And your eye roll shouts: How quaint.
It's easy to get cynical when watching the NCAA tourney, which is a license to print money, from the tailor who designs Pitino's suits to the geek who runs your office pool.
Ryan, however, has never grown jaded, even as he toiled for years far removed from the spotlight as coach of Wisconsin-Platteville.
When rival coaches shake a head in disbelief when told Bo encourages Wisconsin players to skip practice to attend class, Ryan replies: "Don't you at your school?"
Hey, Ryan not only speaks in paint-it-on-a-locker-room-poster platitudes such as "Scold to mold; praise to raise," he actually believes those words with every ounce of his soul. Players buy the sincerity.
"You have to be honest with them," Ryan said. "You can't tell that kid sitting with the remote on the couch who's eating potato chips bag by bag he's the greatest thing that ever lived without kind of mentioning that maybe (he) ought to get off the couch."
These kids today. They have 1,000 distractions, but tend to look up and listen to a mentor who keeps it real. While Ryan might be corny, he's 1,000 percent genuine, and his sincere mission is to teach.
His 703 victories as a college coach have simply been a happy byproduct of that mission.
Bo knows.
Maybe we all should put down the smart phone, give our texting thumbs a rest, pay attention to Bo Ryan and try to learn a little something while he sneaks in life lessons given as deliberately as Wisconsin passes, cuts and moves forward in March Madness.
