For the past two decades, Bo Ryan has been doing one thing better than anyone else in the college basketball coaching ranks: winning games. His .773 winning percentage (476-140) over his 21-year career is by far the best among active Division I coaches with at least 20 years under their belt. His 476 career victories place him 17th among active Division I head coaches and he is just seven wins away from becoming the fifth coach in school history to record 100 wins at UW.

In his four seasons at Wisconsin, Ryan has led the Badgers to heights not reached in Madison in many years. Each season further establishes UW as a major player on the national scene and Ryan as one of the top coaches in the country.

The accomplishments during Ryan’s first four seasons are varied and impressive. The Badgers have won a school-record 25 games in each of the last two seasons. They have four NCAA tournament appearances, advancing to two Sweet 16s and the Elite Eight in 2005. In 2002, Ryan’s first season, Wisconsin earned a share of the Big Ten title for the first time since 1947. The next year, UW won the title outright, securing back-to-back championships for the first time since 1923 and 1924. Not to be outdone, Ryan led the Badgers to their first Big Ten tournament title in 2004.

Prior to Ryan’s arrival in Madison, Wisconsin had never won more than 22 games in a season. Ryan’s teams have averaged 23.3 wins in his four seasons and the Badgers are one of just eight teams in the country to have won at least 24 games in each of the past three seasons.

Wisconsin’s success in Big Ten play under Ryan is unparalleled in school history. He is the first coach in conference history to lead a team to at least 11 Big Ten wins in each of his first four seasons. Prior to his arrival in 2001, UW had won at least 11 conference games just seven times, and only once since 1941. Ryan’s .719 (46-18) winning percentage in conference games is the best of any Big Ten coach in history with more than 50 games coached.

Ryan has also made his mark in the postseason. He is the only coach in school history to have led UW to four NCAA tournament appearances. Wisconsin is also one of just six teams nationally to have won its first-round game in each of the last four years. Ryan’s seven NCAA tournament wins are a school record and he is the first coach in UW history to lead a team to two Sweet 16 appearances.

In Ryan’s four seasons, the Kohl Center has become one of the toughest places to play in America. The Badgers have compiled a 58-3 home record under Ryan, including a 31-1 mark in Big Ten games. From Dec. 7, 2002 to Jan. 24, 2005 Wisconsin did not lose a home game, setting a school record with 38 consecutive wins, a streak that was the longest in the country.

Individual success has followed team success as a number of Ryan’s players have earned honors. UW and Illinois are the only two teams to have had a first-team All-Big Ten selection in each of the last four seasons (Kirk Penney – 2002-03, Devin Harris – 2004 and Mike Wilkinson – 2005). Harris, the fifth pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, was also named the 2004 Big Ten Player of the Year and was a consensus second-team All-American. He was a finalist for every major national player of the year award and finished second for the Bob Cousy Award.

Last season, Ryan was named one of 20 finalists for the Naismith Coach of the Year Award. Despite returning just one starter from the previous year’s team, he led the Badgers to an appearance in the 2005 NCAA Tournament Elite Eight and a school record-tying 25 wins. UW finished third in the Big Ten with an 11-5 mark and advanced to the Big Ten tournament title game for the second consecutive season. Wisconsin finished the season ranked 10th in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll, its highest final ranking in history.

In 2003-04, Ryan led Wisconsin to a 25-7 record, setting a school record for wins in a season and posting the school’s highest winning percentage since the 1941 team won the NCAA title with a 20-3 mark. The Badgers’ 12-4 mark in the Big Ten was good enough to earn the second seed in the conference tournament. UW went on to win the Big Ten tournament for the first time in school history, defeating No. 1 seed Illinois, 70-53, in the final. For the second time in school history, UW was ranked in the Associated Press poll every week during the season. Those accomplishments came in spite of UW losing its second-leading scorer, Alando Tucker, for all but four games and having just four players see action in all 32 games.

The year before, Ryan and the Badgers set a school record with 24 wins and earned an outright Big Ten title and a trip to the NCAA tournament Sweet 16. The outright conference championship was UW’s first since 1947 and the 12 league wins tied a school record set in 1912 and tied in 1914. Ryan earned his second Big Ten Coach of the Year award, becoming the first coach in league history to be so honored in each of his first two seasons.

In his first season, 2001-02, Ryan led an undermanned UW team to an improbable share of its first Big Ten championship in 55 years. Ryan had to juggle a lineup consisting of only eight scholarship players, including five players that had seen very limited or no action at all on the collegiate level. Though it took a period of adjustment, by mid-December the team had started to gel and would go on to win 15 of its final 20 regular-season games and earn a share of the Big Ten title. One of those victories, a 64-56 win over Iowa, was Ryan’s 400th as a collegiate coach.

Ryan has experience as a Division I head and assistant coach, as well as a Division III head coach and is well-respected throughout the college basketball world. At the 2004 Final Four, he was honored with the NABC Guardians of the Game Award for Service. The goal of the Gaurdians of the Game program is to focus attention on the positive aspects of basketball and the role coaches play in the lives of student-athletes, in addition to the contributions coaches make to their communities. Ryan is also one of four head coaches on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Issues Committee.

Ryan came to Wisconsin from UW-Milwaukee, where he spent two seasons coaching the Panthers to their first back-to-back winning seasons in eight years. UWM, 8-19 overall the year before Ryan arrived, was 15-14 and 15-13, respectively, in Ryan’s two years at the controls. The program also experienced a 161-percent home attendance increase in his first season, including the three largest crowds in the history of the school’s home facility.

It was during his 15-year tenure at UW-Platteville (1984-99), however, that Ryan firmly established himself as one of the country’s top coaches. He guided the Division III school to a phenomenal 353-76 (.822) overall record and, in his final 12 seasons, the Pioneers:

• Won four national championships (1991, 1995, 1998 and 1999)

• Compiled a 314-37 (.895) record

• Won eight WIAC titles

• Were the winningest NCAA men’s basketball team of the 1990s (all divisions) with a 266-26 (.908) record

• Compiled a 30-5 NCAA Division III tournament mark

• Never won fewer than 23 games

• Compiled a 157-7 (.957) record on their home floor

• Set the all-time single-season Division III scoring defense mark (47.5 ppg) in 1996-97

Ryan was named the National Association of Basketball Coaches Division III Coach of the Year four times. In addition he was tabbed the Wisconsin Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s Coach of the Year on six occasions.

Ryan took over at UW-Platteville following eight seasons (1976-84) as an assistant coach to Bill Cofield and Steve Yoder at Wisconsin.

Held in high esteem by colleagues, Ryan has won two gold medals as an assistant coach, first with Virginia head coach Pete Gillen and the gold medal-winning North squad at the 1993 U.S. Olympic Festival, and also with former Atlanta Hawks coach Lon Kruger and the United States gold medal winner at the 1995 World University Games.

Ryan was born on Dec. 20, 1947, just outside of Philadelphia in Chester, Pa. At Chester High School, he was a football teammate of current Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Ted Cottrell. He attended Wilkes (Pa.) University, where he starred as a high-scoring guard and earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration in 1969. Ryan was inducted into the Wilkes Athletic Hall of Fame on June 1, 2003.

Upon completion of his collegiate career, Ryan did graduate work at Villanova before accepting an assistant coaching position at the College of Racine (Wis.). Ryan accepted his first head coaching job at Philadelphia’s Sun Valley High School, where he was named the Delaware County Coach of the Year after directing his team to a second-place finish in the Philadelphia Suburban League. His 1976 club was the first Sun Valley High team to qualify for the state tournament.

Ryan is the author of three books on coaching basketball: Passing and Catching: A Lost Art; How to Run the Swing Offense; and Applying and Attacking Pressure. He also has produced five basketball instructional videos.

Ryan and his wife, Kelly, are the parents of five children: Megan, Will, Matt, Brenna and Mairin.