Bo Ryan retires

Oh.....how delicious would that be if he bolted Austin after one year to go back to Wisky?

 

He might have been before last season, but with Texas and Wisconsin on the table, ain't a coach in the world picking the Badgers.

 

Shaka going to Texas last year was a perfect entry point for him.

Anyone going to Wisconsin will now try to "improve" a program that may never see the NCAA title game again.

 

Yes because of Texas' unmatched basketball tradition, obviously. What is it about Longhorn hoops that has you so in awe?

The money would have been the same, Wisconsin has more tradition and a better current rep, and it would be his hometown vs. some place he has never been. Why would Texas have won that?

Frankly, things are so fucked up in Austin right now -- starting with the firing of the AD who hired him, which is always a warning shot -- that it's worth it for Alvarez to make the call.

 

Bo Ryan to Shaka Smart would be an absolute 180 degree changeover from grind-it-out sludgeball to helter skelter run-and-gun, so you'd have to figure a couple seasons would be mostly flushed as the lumbering tree sloths transfer out and the racetrack greyhounds transfer in.

And all the hoop coaches Alvarez has ever hired have been blood and guts leatherneck types.

 

Alvarez has never hired a basketball coach. Ryan got the job in 2001. Alvarez became AD in 2004.

 

My mistake, I thought Alvarez was in on the hiring of Bennett. Still the point remains that Wisconsin has had grind-it-out guys running the show in hoops for quite some time.

 

Well, there are several reasons.

The money isn't the same. Smart started out making a bit more than Ryan, at the end of a program-changing tenure. I don't know it's about the coach's money as much as it's about the overall budget. Texas has a budget that's 25 percent larger and spends three times as much on recruiting.

Texas also has much better access to talent. The state produces more on the basketball front. It's proven better at bringing them in. More importantly, it's not super easy to sell Wisconsin. Madison is great, but it's a cold, very white state that is known for playing grinding slow-down basketball. Ryan made a living taking OK to good kids and building them to greatness, but most coaches would prefer an easier path.

I think you have an interesting balance of expectations. Wisconsin folks, by and large, know they're lucky to be a solid Big 10 team year-in and year-out. But maybe I'm too close to it, because there were always low-level rumblings before he broke through in March. Texas let a guy underachieve for years, and I think it's in no small part because football is so much bigger, it provides cover. I think some coaches wouldn't mind that.

If Smart's mom still lives up there, that could be a factor (he also hasn't coached in the Midwest since being at Dayton in a non-staff role). But from everything reported when the Texas job opened, it sounded as if a lot of coaches saw it as a goldmine of a job. It doesn't sound as if Wisconsin is in that stratosphere.

If they get Smart or Bennett, its a coup. If they get Archie Miller, great move. But after that, it sounds like everyone they suggest is a far flung Bo disciple, and that tree (outside Bennett) hasn't produced a ton.

(And I love Madison as a town and have enough ties to the school to think highly of everything involved. I just look at what it took for a hall of fame coach to build a low floor, lower ceiling program for most of his tenure before a massive breakthrough, and think a monied program with better recruiting grounds and surprisingly little pressure is the pick for most guys. There was the sense when UW lost last year a once-in-several-generations chance had been lost. And that might say it all.)

 

Yeah, two guys since 1995.

Bennett and Ryan found great success, but the style hurt in recruiting. In the last two years they have missed out on two top-flight in-state recruits when Kevon Looney went to UCLA (and then the first round of the draft) and Diamond Stone went to Maryland. Last year four of the state's top five went to other schools including two to Marquette, which just dealt Bo his final blow.

I realize we are on something of a tangent here, but there is talent in the state if someone (Shaka as an example) wants to make use of it.

 

I think Bennett and Ryan identified a good recruiting model considering the types of players usually available in Wisconsin.

 

dirtybird, you don't seem like the kind of person who would be fooled by the timing of contracts, but duh, of course Smart was making more than Ryan -- he just had the live negotiation. Last year Ryan was making more than Barnes.

The rest of your post shows how unfamiliar you are with the whole scene, so not really worth the bother.

 

Some clarification here. Bennett preferred slow ball, the 48-43 victory. His first year he had very few players who could do it and he coached a lot of 81-74 games and it killed him. He would bitch about it afterwards in the presser.

There is a narrative that Bo Ryan also played slow ball. He would, when warranted, but it was far different than Bennett's team, where it was required. Ryan's squads wouldn't hold the ball - they were simply efficient on offense.

While Wisconsin dies not produce a high volume of Division 1 basketball players (or football), they will be a destination as long as Minnesota and Illinois keep chasing their tails. The NW suburbs of Chicago are two hours from Madison.

The perception of UW in Minneapolis and Chicago, while not in Wisconsin, is of a school with high academic prestige and relatively few athletic scandals. Wisconsin doesn't get white players so much as players from two-parent/affluent households and THAT style of basketball is a different flavor than the one and done factories. Wisconsin gets a lot of kids who play AAU ball but they've been riding around the Midwest in a minivan for years.

Back to Shaka (or really any coach). If you have $3M a year from Texas or $3M a year at Wisconsin, what would you choose?

I'd take Texas. Lower expectations to start, still the flagship school of a gigantic state. NO state income tax (that's about $180k a year). In both cases, they're football schools, even at Wisconsin with two straight FF trips.

Last April, I know I wasn't the only Wisconsin alum to make the trek to Indy because I figured this would be "it". Dekker and Kaminsky would leave and, with that, Wisconsin's last realistic shot at a NC. Up 9 late and almost pulled it off.

Alvarez will get the full time to put "his guy" in there and I would be surprised if it is Gard. He built football, has the statue and the power and will probably bring in someone with head coaching experience in April.

Still amazed with what I've seen in Madison. 5-6 was considered a great year in football and the NIT was the goal for basketball when I started college.