1. With this being finals week at most schools we expected this to be a quiet week with the exception of injuries and transfers, but that all came to an end on Tuesday night when Bo Ryan announced that he would be retiring immediately. Prior to the season Ryan had discussed his plans to retire at the end of the season, but there were some reports that he was considering staying longer. Ryan’s decision to leave his team during the season led to many questions about the timing: Was it because this is his worst Wisconsin team ever? Was he quitting on his team or helping long-time assistant Greg Gard get a chance to prove himself when the school probably would have not if Ryan had retired at the end of the season? Going through Ryan’s achievements, legacy, and potential successors is much too involved for this column (we have other posts about it on the site) so we will just say that Ryan might be as responsible for the development of an elite program as anybody in the sport today.
2. Iowa State‘s national title hopes took a big hit earlier this week when they announced that senior guard Naz Mitrou-Long will seek a medical redshirt as he continues to recover from nagging issues with his hips. Long, who had arthroscopic surgery on both hips over the summer, was averaging 12 points per game, but felt that the pain was too great to play through at this point. Fortunately for the Cyclones they do have help in the form of mid-year transfer Deonte Burton, but Long’s absence will keep them at a seven-man rotation. There were also couple of notable injuries to big men on Tobacco Road. The more significant of the two injuries is the one to Amile Jefferson, who will be out indefinitely after fracturing a bone in his right foot. Given Duke‘s lack of depth on the inside a prolonged absence by Jefferson or even worse any lingering issues for Jefferson (averaging 11.4 points and 10.3 rebounds this season) would severely limit Duke’s upside in March. The injury to Kennedy Meeks appears to be less severe as he is expected to be out at least two weeks with a bone bruise on his right knee. Meeks is also a key part of North Carolina‘s rotation, but the Tar Heels have enough depth on the inside that they should be able to survive his absence without missing too much.
3. Christmas break is always a popular time for players (sorry, student-athletes) to decide to transfer. As we seem to state every year the biggest reasons are likely that they head home and hear from everybody about how they should be playing a bigger role and that the coaching staff isn’t putting them in position to succeed. So we are not usually surprised to see transfers at this time of year, but as you can see by the transfer list that Jeff Goodman and Jeff Borzello are keeping there are already quite a few who have decided it is time to move on. Most of these transfers won’t raise many eyebrows, but a few like Texas A&M freshman Elijah Thomas, a top 30-/50-recruit depending on which rating agency you follow, are notable and will probably attract a substantial amount of interest from programs around the country.
4. When the NCAA issued its rules changes before the start of the season it was met with quite a bit of criticism, but now that we are approaching the start of conference play we think that most people have to be happy with the results so far. As Mike Lopresti notes scoring is up by more than 10 points per game from this time last year with most of that apparently being driven the increased pace of the game. However as some coaches note there is concern about a regression particularly with freedom of movement and foul calls. While we think it is too early to reach any conclusions about the impact of the changes it seems like a good start.
5. It seems like we hear about different models to pay student-athletes, but it is pretty rare to see an idea get an article on it in The New York Times so we were pretty surprised to see them write about a site that proposes to use crowdfunding as a means of payment. The idea that is being proposed allows fans to donate money to a student-athlete (less a 5% fee the site takes) with a note possibly encouraging them to attend a school with the donation period closing once an individual commits to a school. The student-athlete would be able to collect the money after their college career was over regardless of where they went to school. Even before the NCAA’s lawyers rip this to shreds there are a couple of key things that bother us: the monetary donations when a player hasn’t committed seems like a not-so-subtle way of buying a player to come to a school, issues with fans getting upset of having spent their money on a recruit who goes somewhere else, and finally the issue with a company/trust holding the money until their college career is over seems like a recipe for corruption.

Dick Bennett’s role in building the Wisconsin basketball program cannot be overlooked. This is a program that was a Big Ten doormat for nearly a half-century before he brought the Badgers back to prominence with several NCAA Tournament appearances culminating in a run to the 2000 Final Four. If Bennett gets credit for laying the program’s foundation, though, then Bo Ryan came to Madison and made it a seven-figure property in a wealthy neighborhood. During his 14 seasons at the helm, Wisconsin became an NCAA Tournament fixture. His teams rarely had a surplus of NBA-caliber players, yet they still went on an unfathomable conference run where the Badgers never finished lower than fourth place in the Big Ten regular season. Much has already been discussed about his decision to step down as head coach 12 games into the season, but this is not the space for that debate. Instead, this post is meant to look at his career as program-builder during his time in Madison.

Bo Ryan finished his career as one of the best head coaches in the history of the Big Ten. Photo: Steve Gotter

If we look at records through the decades, Wisconsin notched a 111-127 overall mark in the 1960s, a 108-145 mark in the 1970s, and a 118-166 record in the 1980s. With the arrival of Bennett in the 1990s, that mark improved to 157-142. Since Ryan took over the helm of the program in 2001, however, the Badgers’ overall record has been 364-130. He also made the NCAA Tournament every year he was on the sideline in Madison, and this marked improvement wasn’t necessarily because he was the slickest salesman on the recruiting trail. Wisconsin brought in the occasional elite prep star like Brian Butch or Sam Dekker, but for every blue-chipper he lured to his program, there were two or three versions of Mike Bruesewitz or Josh Gasser also on board — players of somewhat lesser talent who were nevertheless perfect fits for his system.

All that winning and consistency for his first 12 seasons were great, but everything came to a crescendo during the last two campaigns. Led by National Player of the Year Frank Kaminsky and a veteran cast surrounding him, Wisconsin went to consecutive Final Fours, put together a come-from-behind Final Four win over perhaps the most dominant regular season team in two decades, and swept both Big Ten championships last season. Despite the Badgers’ somewhat rocky start this year and his surprising departure, it’s difficult to argue that Ryan didn’t go out on top. The program is in great position for sustainable success, and Ryan should get the majority of the credit for developing the Badgers’ culture that facilitates it.

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1. The Big Ten Tournament starting today certainly has the focus of everyone following the conference’s basketball scene except for one head coach. Iowa‘s Fran McCaffery announced in a statement that his son has a tumor on his thyroid. Thirteen-year-old Patrick discovered the tumor last week and will undergo surgery next Wednesday, the day before he turns 14. While we may all have our focus set to basketball and brackets this weekend, McCaffery’s certainly could be elsewhere.
2. There are plenty of tournament predictions out there and Ken Pomeroy released his log5 thoughts yesterday. He gives the top two seeds the most respect in Michigan and Wisconsin while dropping the Cornhuskers plenty with only a 5 percent chance to win the whole thing. That chance is closer to least-probable Northwestern’s chances than it is to Iowa’s, which is one step above Nebraska. Beyond that the prediction is pretty straight forward in nearly following the seed lines. Some teams may be a tad bit high or low for everyone’s thoughts, but with how this conference season has went, it makes sense to not have any heavy favorites.
3. The season may not be over for any Big Ten teams this morning, but that doesn’t mean the coaching searches haven’t started for programs that are finished. With this in mind, Sports Illustrated’s Brian Hamilton took a look at the top assistants in the country that could be looking to take their first head coaching job. The Big Ten has three names on the list: Ohio State‘s Jeff Boals, Wisconsin‘s Greg Gard, and Michigan‘s LaVall Jordan. All of the names are solid considerations and have been linked to jobs the past few seasons and certainly could be headed out soon. There was one name that we were surprised not to see – Michigan State‘s Dwayne Stephens. Some may expect him to eventually succeed Tom Izzo, but if Gard’s name is coming up, certainly Stephens should, too. This is a guy who has developed big men Adreian Payne and Draymond Green and been named a top 15 recruiter and assistant coach in the past two years. Really, though, there are plenty of assistant and associate head coaches in the Big Ten that could find head coaching gigs in the near future.
4. Ohio State got back to winning ways against Michigan State, but that didn’t mean an easy week of practice. The Buckeyes have prepped for the Big Ten Tournament with a challenging week, despite it being the first time they will play on Thursday in the BTT since 2005. This tournament has plenty of intrigue for Ohio State who drew a Purdue team it swept to open the tournament. The games will be important to determining exactly where the Buckeyes end up in the seeding line of the NCAA Tournament, win a few games and a five or six seed is possible, loss to Purdue and it could fall to the dreaded 8-9 game.
5. The Big Ten Tournament has never treated Indiana well. It has lost in the quarterfinals or first round 11 times in its 16 years of existence. The Hoosiers only have one championship game appearance and have never won the whole thing. That doesn’t matter to this year’s team, who just wants to focus on its first game against Illinois today. Still, this Indiana team needs history to change (and make history in itself by being hte lowest seed to win the tournament) if it wants to play in the NCAA Tournament. Indiana is likely only going if it wins the whole thing, so either history is changing or the Hoosiers are going to start paying close attention to NBA Draft announcements regarding Noah Vonleh.