Can we finally stop pretending that Bo Ryan is one of the elite coaches in America? He is a good coach...maybe close to very good but his archaic offensive philosophy and closed minded approach to defense will always prevent his teams from winning when it matters...the post season. As is the case often times in coaching his incredible ego and arrogance (ask any reporter that has had to put up with his "smartest guy in the room" schtick) stops him from admitting that there may be more then one way to win a basketball game.
As I have pointed out many times over the last few years,Bo's teams are unable to out score an opponent(look at his record when opponents score 70+ points). Look at Tom Izzo's team...they needed to score 85 points to win a tourney game and they did. Bo's squad needed to score 88 and they of course failed again. When you play in the tourney you are playing well coached, talented offensive teams. Great offense always beats good defense(on a given night) so when a team faces a great offense they need to be able to turn it up themselves. The swing and the ridiculous pace that Bo teaches is great in the plodding Big Ten but will continue to be a huge part of the Badger's post season failures.
Lets look at his defensive philosophy. Why anyone ever runs anything other then pick and roll basketball against Bo's teams I will never understand. How many years will Wisconsin be run out of the tourney because a player or players goes off on Bo's vaunted man-man? My guess is that this continues until Bo admits that he is not the smartest man in every room and actually looks at a few options defensively to slow down a hot player.
I understand that Wisconsin has improved their basketball program under Bo. They are at least relevant in the regular season Big Ten. But is it too much to ask that occasionally they make a deep post season run? They were lucky to beat Wofford, a Southern Conf. team and were blown out of the gym by Cornell...a non scholarship Ivy League team. Please Bo take a look in the mirror and tell me that you are doing everything in your power to take UW to a deep post season run. I don't think you can do that...in fact I bet you ask your wife to have the mirrors out of your house by the time you get home from your latest post season debacle. Oh, one more thing...can you get off your butt and recruit some offensive players? Or would that mean that you would actually have to go into a hot gym during your summer months?
