It appears Frank Kaminsky and Sam Dekker will not be the only two leaving the Wisconsin Badgers basketball program, head coach Bo Ryan announced he would only be coaching one more season. After leading the Badgers to the NCAA National Championship game, Ryan decided he would retire after the 2015-2016 season.
In a statement Ryan said, “I am looking forward to another year with our program, including our players, my terrific assistant coaches, our office staff and everyone who supports Wisconsin basketball here in Madison, around the state and across the country.”
The Wisconsin head coach hopes his assistant coach Greg Gard will be his replacement after his final season. Gard has been coaching alongside Ryan for more than twenty years.
Wisconsin was unable to bring the championship trophy home after getting beat by the Duke Blue Devils, but that does not take away from the career Ryan has had with the Badgers program.
In fourteen seasons with Wisconsin, Ryan has reached the NCAA tournament every year. He has an overall record of 357-125, is a four-time Big Ten coach of the year and has led the program to four Big Ten regular season championships.
Before being hired as the Wisconsin head basketball coach, Ryan started his career in college athletics in 1973 at Dominican College of Racine as an assistant basketball coach and the head baseball coach. Dominican College was shut down in 1974 though. After his past coaching success, Ryan was named as the assistant head coach at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1976-1984. At the end of the 1984 season, Ryan accepted a head coaching position at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. With Ryan as the head coach, UW-Platteville won the most games of any NCAA men’s basketball team of the 1990s in all divisions with a record of 266-26. After leaving Platteville, Ryan was hired as head coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee for two seasons before landing his current job with the Badgers.
Season number fifteen may be Ryan’s last, but he will not be alone as standout players Nigel Hayes and Bronson Koenig will both be returning.
Does Ryan have enough fire to lead his team to a fifteenth straight NCAA tournament or is the real question will next season really be Bo Ryan’s last season in Madison? Only time will tell, but one thing is certain everyone will “Deal with it”.