Athletes - Bo Ryan

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	Athletes - Bo Ryan

Bo Ryan (born December 20, 1947 in Chester, Pennsylvania, United States) is the current head coach of the University of Wisconsin men's basketball team. Ryan is the current leader in overall winning percentage in the entire NCAA among coaches with at least twenty years of head coaching experience.

Playing career

Bo Ryan began playing basketball at a very young age. His father, Butch Ryan, coached basketball to under-privileged children in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Butch Ryan taught his son all the skills to be a successful point guard, generally the position of the team leader. With the skills Ryan had learned he became a star basketball player in high school. Ryan set many records at Chester High School that stood until the late 1990's. Future St. Joseph's University and Orlando Magic star Jameer Nelson surpassed most of Ryan's records that had stood for nearly thirty years. After high school, Ryan starred as a point guard at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. It was evident that Ryan was not going to amount to anything as far as a basketball playing career, but his love for the game drove him to remain involved with the sport. He chose to delve into the coaching profession.

Coaching Career

Early years

Once graduating from Wilkes University, Ryan began graduate work at Villanova University in Villanova, Pennsylvania. Ryan later accepted an offer to be an assistant coach at the College of Racine in Wisconsin. His first head coaching post was at Sun Valley High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At Sun Valley, Ryan won the conference coach of the year in 1976. Impressed with Bo Ryan's efforts as an assistant at the College of Racine and his successful first season as a high school head coach, Ryan was hired as an assistant coach under Bill Cofield and later under Steve Yoder at the University of Wisconsin. He served as an assistant at the University of Wisconsin for eight years, until 1984.

UW-Platteville

After his stint as an assistant, Ryan accepted the head coaching position at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. At Platteville, he became the premiere coach in Division III basketball. From 1984 until 1999 Ryan's Platteville team posted a 352-76 overall record, equal to a winning percentage of 82%. Ryan guided the UW-Platteville Pioneers to four national championships (1991, 1995, 1998, 1999). He also won eight Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference championships and set a Division III scoring defense record in 1997 with his team only allowing 47.5 points per game.

UW-Milwaukee

With Ryan's phenomenal success at Platteville, Ryan was hired as head coach at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Milwaukee had been a desolate basketball program when Ryan arrived, but in his first two seasons they stringed their first back to back winning seasons in program history. Ryan also brought a 161% increase in home attendance at UW-Milwaukee, giving the program new energy that springboarded into Bruce Pearl's successful teams in the mid 2000's.

University of Wisconsin

Following the Badgers' 2000 Final Four run, head coach Dick Bennett retired two games into the 2000-2001 season. Assistant coach Brad Soderberg finished the season as interim head coach, but was not retained by the University. The coaching search began to concentrate on either Rick Majerus of the University of Utah, who was a Milwaukee native, and Bo Ryan. Majerus pulled his name out of consideration and the decision was made to hire Bo Ryan as head coach. Ryan's first season was much more successful than ever anticipated. The team was predicted to finish as low as ninth in the Big Ten in preseason polls. The team, lead by Kirk Penney, surprisingly tied with three other teams for the 2002 Big Ten Championship and received an invite to the NCAA Tournament. The Badgers once again won the Big Ten championship in the 2002-2003 season and advanced to the "Sweet Sixteen" in the NCAA Tournament. The Badgers won the Big Ten Tournament Championship in 2004, led by Devin Harris, and once again received a NCAA Tournament invitation. In the 2004-2005 season, Wisconsin advanced to the "Elite Eight" in the NCAA Tournament, losing to the eventual national champion, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Tar Heels. On December 10, 2005, Ryan recorded his 100th victory as Wisconsin head coach by defeating in-state rival Marquette.

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