He’s 45, and will now be evaluated by Barry Alvarez, who Ryan has been conversing with about the retirement for a number of months. Ryan said his retirement was effective immediately and longtime assistant Greg Gard would serve as the interim coach for the rest of the season. “And I’m trying to hold this together”. The 67-year-old ends his 32-year career on the college level with a 747-233 record, which includes 364-130 in 15 seasons at the University of Wisconsin.
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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. Ryan has gone a flawless 14-for-14 with NCAA tournament bids, coming so close to the program’s first national title since 1941.
Ryan has led Wisconsin to back-to-back Final Fours and the school’s first appearance in the National Championship game since 1941.
It wasn’t an easy announcement to make for Ryan, who prepared remarks but said he wanted to speak from the heart.
According to The New York Times, Ryan won 75 percent of the games he coached, something that not many coaches can say they did. Ryan said Gard’s best attributes in selling himself for the job are his recruiting knowledge to the Wisconsin system and familiarity with the Big Ten, handling the majority of scouting.
Davis, who coached the Hawkeyes’ men’s basketball team from 1986-99, was finishing his fifth season at Boston College back in 1982 and received feelers from other programs.
“I just think he’s a victor, he’s won every step of the way”, said Bennett, who coached against Ryan in his Platteville days. “I brought this up to [athletic director Barry Alvarez] back in April”.
No, this decision, and the timing, was about one thing and one thing only: giving Greg Gard the best possible shot at being his replacement. The elder Gard died on October 30.
“Barry and I had been talking: What’s a good time?” “What we came down to was semester”. The Badgers struggled as Ryan wrestled with his future and that of his loyal assistant Greg Gard – a man he cosigned as his potential successor, a man who now moves forward as the interim coach of a program that is rarely in flux.
Ryan, Alvarez and Gard all spoke to the Badgers in the locker room following the win. “And I don’t know how many coaches ever have the opportunity to have an AD and an administration that understand and respects that”.
In June, Ryan indicated this season would be his last, but stated a couple months later he was no longer sure about when he would retire.
“Bo and I never made eye contact and this game we did”, Hayes said.
“I’ll see you down the road”. “I guess now it makes sense why he looked like that”.
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“Thanks for everything over the years, Coach Ryan”, tweeted Wisconsin great Devin Harris, the fifth overall pick of the 2004 NBA Draft. Thus far they are just 7-5, with losses to Western Illinois, Georgetown, Oklahoma and, perhaps most painfully, Milwaukee and Marquette in in-state nonconference contests the last two games before Tuesday’s win.
