Ryan Addresses Media Monday
November 18, 2002 | Men's Basketball
Wisconsin men's basketball coach Bo Ryan spoke to the media on Monday during UW's weekly news conference. Ryan talked about the Badgers' upcoming game versus UW-Milwaukee and addressed various issues about the team.
A transcript of the news conference follows:
How have things changed this year, as you are no longer in your first year of coaching' 'Well, I think it's like anything else. If you take a teacher that's just moved into a new school district, and they're teaching history, and they add another history teacher the year before, the first part of the year is the adjustment. Everybody has their own style. You have coaches that have already delivered their message to their own players and what they are doing and what they are trying to do and a lot of the other speculations disappear, your players understand what you want. So, it is different now after one year. Systems are already in place, and everybody knows even through an all-season what's expected of them now. So it is different than last year for those reasons.'
Are you preparing differently for this game ' 'Yeah, I watched a film this morning and one last night, as I usually do for everybody else. So it's nothing different.'
Do you feel this team is similar to yours' 'Bruce is doing is a lot of the same things. Offensively working triangles, ball-side triangles. He uses more of a flex-cut compared to what we use with a swing-cut. It's more of a 45-degree angle. His cut in the flex is all-flex offense is more along the base line. The post plays off of turning the ball, using the bounce pass, which Tom Davis emphasized quite bit. I played for a coach that emphasized the bounce pass a lot. How they play is something that I am familiar with because I am familiar with that system. With his team and with our team, it does not make any difference. You really do not need any film and you do not need a whole lot to study from because he's like I am. We are kind of set in our ways and we are not going to change. We have high school coaches come to our practices, write stuff down. People come to our games and they will say you know you are doing the same things you were doing back in the 80's, and I hope that is good. I look at Bruce's teams, and they are doing the same things they were doing when he was coaching at Southern Indiana, and a lot of coaches are that way. You put it in and you say all right the other team has to stop it. Whatever we are doing offensively or defensively, I have tried to build in teaching through repetition, and people having to adjust to us or handle us. Rather than always changing on the fly and saying, `Okay this is what this team does, we have to change, we have to change, we have to change.' I think when you do that with players, they lose confidence, and what is wrong with what we are doing if we have to change all the time. So with what we are doing and what they are doing, it is the same and I think it will be the same for a long time.'
Have the teams individual roles changed since you left there ' 'No, I don't know if there are really any role changes. I think numbers-wise, they have more numbers to play right now. More healthy bodies, more guys with some experience, and that is what we were trying to develop there before we left. Bruce has done that by gaining another year of experience from those guys that were juniors last year, and now they are seniors. Having Jose committed before we left, we never thought we would have to face him coming back as a point guard. But there are other guys that can play, whether their role is 20 minutes or 10 minutes, I do not know about reducibles, I just know that guys have to figure out ways to help their team, and sometimes injuries can change that, and sometimes style in a certain way can change that. But it seems like a lot of those guys that were there when we left are playing significant roles. So I don't know who you mean if you don't mean individuals.'
Are you looking for particular individuals to target when you watch tape' 'No, I really don't look at film that way. We don't have any film from this year. We just have film from last year. We don't have any of their exhibition games. Basically when I look at film, I'm looking for dependencies of the team, not as much on the individuals, at this point. Especially if it is early in the year because the guys come back the next year; the guys are a little bigger, a little stronger, maybe they went from a 3 to a 4 spot or from 4 to a 2. So we don't know about them, this is their first game. And they have had nothing to do but get ready for opening night. We had practice last year to get ready for UNLV, when we started in October. We just practiced to get better as a team. And to make sure we kind of knew what we were going to try to establish and I am sure they are doing the same thing. They are getting ready to play a season trying to get everybody better here in the practices from October, and not necessarily spending the whole month practicing for Wisconsin. Bruce is too good a coach to do that just for one game. He is looking at his over-all program. Looking to try to win the conference title and playing post-season, I am sure.'
How has Devin Harris been so successful with steals ' 'Well, you are talking genetics had a lot to do with the quick fiber twitch that Devin Harris has. He is quick and got that at birth, and he has worked at it and developed it even further. So that is how he has been able to anticipate those steals and anticipate and deliver on the flex and steal. There are a lot of us that can anticipate maybe, but we can not get there, especially as we get older. Devin is a young man who anticipates and can get there and get some deflections and that was one of them last year, and it was something that we needed at the time needless to say. He studies the game as it goes on. We always encourage our players to use the game just like we use video going into a game. I want to talk to guys on the bench about watching tendencies on the court, about trying to pick up if a guy only turns to his wave, if a guy only goes left or has one counter move or has a slow release or defensively is a terrible post player or finds himself on the high side when he should be on the low side of the post or vice versa. Some guys are better at picking things up during the games than others. We always try to encourage our guys to be the best at it.'
Is it beneficial to play other in-state teams ' 'I know that. Well, I know the feelings it is just being in the state so long. Coaching at two different levels in the state even before we got here, coaching here as an assistant and then going to the state league, as an assistant here, we played UWM and Green Bay a few times. It is good for the state; it is good for basketball. It certainly creates a lot of interest. And in talking with Tom Davis a lot about playing Drake in Northern Iowa, he knew those were tough games, too. That is something that Iowa State does in the state of Iowa with their four division one schools. We have four division one schools here, and we are just one of those that believes everybody should play or we know we should play. I can not speak for anybody else. But I know Green Bay and Milwaukee like the idea, having been in Milwaukee.'
What were your feelings about the success at the end of the season last year and the NCAA tournament' 'It is not so much what it was about for me, but the players, and for the players it was tremendous. I thought we were extremely competitive. The first half we were competitive for 20 minutes, came out in the second half. The bigger, stronger team won, and they were definitely smarter than us in the second half. They used their size well, they took it at us, and we couldn't hit it. But it is for them, those guys deserve that opportunity. They are at the division one level. They get a scholarship, most of them, some walk-ons. For them to play, that is something that I think is extremely important for the division one teams, for the players. I know some coaches worry about their records or how it is going to look if something goes south, but you can not beat the games.'
Is the team a little more excited to play against a sort of rival and some of their hometown' 'Our players, I would like to think they're fired-up for playing everybody the same way, and that's always the way I've tried to teach. They will never see from me that one game is ever more of a jack job than any other because then what do you do next' My wife talked about this before last year. If I get too emotional about one game or too rah-rahish, what do you do for the next one' I just always want to get guys to understand that competing against highest level of all time at practice. If you get them to do that, why would you ever have to worry about guys playing hard for a game, and as I mentioned before you never see me say our guys were not very emotional tonight, they did not play very hard. I do not use those terms. I think that is unfair to players. I do not think they do cartwheels when they hear it but, I have never tried to put it on them that they were not ready. You come to practice everyday ready, and you'll play in games like your ready, against UW-M and against Michigan State. '
What do you think you need to work on most' 'I thought they did a pretty good job on the glass and defensively. Finishing at times, still we have to work on that. I think we just need to get our balance a little bit better. I like how active they were. Dave and Mike both showed some pretty goods spurts on the offense, keeping the balls alive, and defensively helping on most of the penetrations. Not all of them, but most of them. Still areas to improve are there.'
Do you like opening the season at home this year, as opposed to your travels last year' 'Well, you could picture opening up at UNLV with all the fire works, and I do not mean that literally. The description was fire works, confetti, smoke on the introductions. We did not know what was going on, and I knew a little bit about what they do, but our players did not. Opening up there and then going to Hawaii, I like the way we were able to start at home when we have five guys on the bench that you are putting in, that really have not played in a regulation college game, other than the two exhibitions, and starting at home with five veterans, I like our chances. I thought that would be an advantage for us to bring along the younger guys slowly. We have another one at home, and hopefully we can do the same thing and get those guys blended. They definitely knew more about what they were trying to establish. Last year, we are in Hawaii, and there comes a player that said to one of the assistants, "Hey, this is not working." I laughed when it got back to me because it is not going to work for a while; until you believe, as players, and you commit to something. At least they were smart enough not to say publicly that this does not work. When you put something in new or start a new, there is always going to be those questions and some guys are a just a little harder headed than others. You just have to keep pounding away, chipping away. So hopefully now with our veterans who have been through a year that they can, as we said many times, pass the things on to the younger guys so that it takes less time to adapt.'
What are the advantages of playing at the Kohl Center ' 'Well, I think there is an advantage of what we said many times about guys sleeping in familiar territory. Your routine gets a little bit better. Also you have people sending out a lot of positive energy in the stands. I would like to think that at least 16,500, 17,000 are routing for us, there might be a couple other fans in there. I think that positive energy helps. Yeah, I do not know how anybody can ever say that playing at home is not an advantage in basketball, maybe in some other sports where they wear helmets and a whole lot of pads and you really do not see the faces that much. I just figure in hockey, since coach Eaves is here, you fly around so fast, you do not know if you are on horse-back or foot. But in basketball, the surroundings are friendly, your sleep habits, your eating habits. You are familiar with all of them. It is definitely an advantage playing at home.'
