Bo Ryan’s Sudden Retirement Leaves Wisconsin Reeling

Williams coached Maryland for 22 years, while Ryan has now been coaching the Badgers for 15.

A four-time Big Ten Coach of the Year, Ryan owns four regular-season conference championships, three Big Ten Tournament championships, and four more Division III titles while coaching at Wisconsin-Platteville. What we’re seeing is Ryan trying to engineer getting his long-time assistant, Greg Gard, installed as his permanent replacement, by giving him the reins mid-season.

Sitting with a 7-5 record now, the Badgers will look to regroup without Ryan, and it won’t be easy. Jacobsen knows the region well and has proven that he can win in locales without one of the traditional metro areas being next door for recruiting. Ryan retires with the highest winning percentage in Big Ten history with a record of 172-68 (.717) in conference play. “That’s how I got to know him”.

“You hope that they hire a great guard when he’s done”, Matta said in October about Ryan’s pending departure.

“This was a decision months in the making”.

Ryan said the demands on Gard’s time to fly around the country meeting with doctors and helping his dad put his retirement on the back burner.

“You kind of see that look in his eyes, and you know when it’s time”, Molesworth said of Ryan’s Tuesday announcement. “This is semester. We start finals and I want to give Coach Gard plenty of time to get the guys ready and to get them in position, where as a head coach, he has a chance … to take a run at the job”. It would have been better if he had retired after his Wisconsin team lost in the national championship game last season. Gard, 44, could contend with Northern Iowa head coach Ben Jacobson, Valparaiso’s Bryce Drew, and Virginia head coach Tony Bennett.

My assistant coaches at the time were Bruce Pearl and Gary Close. There are a lot of rumors swirling around, and I’m going to try to untangle them as simply as possible here.

Ryan also indicated that not everyone was aware of his decision to retire following the game, hinting that there may be more information to come, which could shed more light on the abrupt decision to retire.

Though that same stubbornness also led to a few awkward exchanges with the media over the years, it was a clue as to how the end of Ryan’s career would play out.

Butch believes that Gard will not make major changes in the offensive system or other things that could really challenge young athletes like college basketball players. I’ve been there myself, I appreciate how he handled it. “He’d always ask himself, ‘Was this place any better than where I’m at right now?'”

“I’ve never had more than a one-year contract in my entire career, so for me it’s never been about the pressure in that way, ” Gard, 45, said.

The Tar Heels had no choice but to name Bill Guthridge as the team’s next coach.

Ryan is a 2015 Naismith Hall of Fame finalist.

“I tell him I’m the one who got him started in coaching”, Fatzinger countered with a chuckle.