Ryan speaks with media at Monday news conference
December 05, 2011 | Men's Basketball
Dec. 5, 2011
• Watch Ryan's press conference 
MADISON, Wis. -- Wisconsin men's basketball coach Bo Ryan met with the media at Monday's weekly news conference. Archived video of Ryan's appearance can be found above, while a complete transcript can be found below.
QUESTION #1: Bo, how much do you enjoy these in-state games, especially with Green Bay and Milwaukee coming up, playing against guys who maybe, you knew, grew up looking to a Wisconsin and kind of understanding and appreciating Wisconsin basketball?
Bo Ryan: Well, having been on both ends of it, it’s pretty exciting, because not every sport at the University has rivalries like that within the state. So the teams that do, I think that’s pretty special. It’s different for some, and we do play the other schools in the state. So having coached at UW-Milwaukee, I knew what it was like getting ready for this. You know what the players are thinking. It’s just natural. It was like in high school.
Having played at a high school where everybody that played us, it was like their biggest game. So for a lot of our guys in high school, that was the situation too, that end up playing at scholarship schools, and so I think the players are kind of used to it. But still, on this end, there’s nothing like playing where there’s some familiarity, that’s for sure. Good for the sport.
QUESTION #2: Coach, last week you said that North Carolina might be a little ornery coming off a loss. Do you sense that in your guys this week at all?
RYAN: Well, when I say ornery, what I was referring to is with their size, length, athletic ability, the eight McDonald’s All-Americans. I mean that’s a little different than maybe if I’m going to say my guys are ornery after bumps. I think it’s apples and oranges to try to answer what you just posed.
I think if you try to get out of what you normally do as a player, I think you can create some problems. But it certainly wasn’t for lack of effort. We were in a position to, twice, the way we came back, to get within one and then three, when things just weren’t going well. I like some of the things I saw, and there are things that we have to work on, but I don’t like guys to play ornery. I just thought that North Carolina was in a little bit different position.
QUESTION #3: Bo, you talked about after the game that you have streaky shooters, and you know that. It’s just kind of something you have to live with. How many guys do you think you have in that category, and how many guys would you call . . .
RYAN: Well, I think all shooters are somewhat streaky, but some go through, or at least they’ve shown the proclivity of it happening more often than maybe some others, you know. And Ben [Brust] is like that, Jared’s [Berggren] like that, Josh [Gasser], Jordan [Taylor]. I mean, we have a lot of guys that are like that.
If you take 10,000 games over the past X number of years throughout the country, and if you did a press conference, and if the coach coming in was allowed to say one thing, what do you think, the team that was on the right-hand side, what do you think that one thing is they could wrap up the whole press conference, and the coach would say one thing? What do you think that would be? Make shots.
I mean, but the other team’s playing defense, so they’re trying to keep you from making shots. And we just played two very good teams. You take a look at what Marquette did to Ole Miss, and Ole Miss has gone on the road, and they took one at Penn State. I think they beat DePaul at DePaul, you know. So we knew we were playing two very good teams that week. We took them one at a time. But they’re, that’s some good competition.
And the one thing you make sure of is that if you are victorious, I’m watching some teams win 100-40 against teams where I’ve had some people say to me, ‘Coach, you could’ve scored 100 on that team. You could’ve scored 90.’ It’s like I was telling the people at the luncheon today, be careful in victory. If you’re planting the seeds of defeat down the road, what happens when you get into the conference? What happens when you get against certain other opponents?
You still want to make sure you’re doing things in games that will give you a chance in all your games to be successful. So you still try to take good shots. You still try to take care of the ball. You still try to limit good looks from the other team. You take away easy baskets. So I just think competition-wise, that was a good week, competition-wise.
QUESTION #4: You mentioned Ben [Brust] as one of the shooters. You know, he’s leading the Big Ten among non-starters as far as points go. Is he kind of exactly what you would look for in a sixth man, a guy who can come off the bench and provide that instant offense, is that what you look for as a sixth man type guy?
RYAN: Well, yeah. We’ve had six men come in. Michael Flowers came in as a reserve, and he added defense, so not every guy you bring in. JBo [Jason Bohannon] was that kind of guy early. We’ve had other guys in that role. And the thing is, Ben, along with every other guy on the team, is trying to get better at defense. Some guys have a little further to go than others.
So if you’re not on the floor, say, last year, for a guy like Ben, or a guy like Jared [Berggren], who’s now getting a lot more minutes, it’s because you’re always trying to reward the right things. You know, if you want A, you don’t reward B, because that’s what you’ll get is B.
So if you want a player on the court that is good at both ends, relatively skilled passing, rebounding, blocking out, making plays, making good help and recovery decisions, things like that, you’re always trying to develop the total player. We knew we had a lot of minutes to replace with guys that needed to get better in a lot of those areas I just mentioned, and one way you can get better is learn from things that don’t exactly go your way. And then if things do go your way, remember what it took to get that result. But the key is to reward what you want.
QUESTION #5: You held two very highly-potent offenses this past week to 60 and 61 points and weren’t able to win. Is there any concern with offensive production?
RYAN: Well, you always are. Like I said, if I’d have walked in here in a press conference, and I answered that one question, it would, I just answered it. So you go to the next game, and you’ve got to make shots. That’s why you run offense. That’s why you practice. A lot of times, when we’re done with teams, they’re scratching their head going how come we couldn’t shoot it better against those guys? It depends on when you want to ask the question.
But I thought, defensively, we stuck to our roles, didn’t do some things on the boards that I think we’re better at than what we, than what we showed. So shore those up and it gives you a better chance in the next one. And you haven’t seen anything yet when you think about high-potent offenses. There are more coming.
QUESTION #6: As a coach, do you come away more discouraged that your guys didn’t win those two games or encouraged that, you know, you had them down to the final minutes, and you were right in these games against two top-15 programs?
RYAN: You know, it is so hard to explain to people when they ask a question like that. I just don’t know where to begin. A coach doesn’t, I don’t have levels of disappointment. My job is to help people through the emotional rollercoasters that they’re one. They’re in their time-frame right now. I’ve had 10 four-year periods in coaching. They get one four-year period. They’re in their element right now, so somebody that’s been through it needs to help them get through it.
So I don’t measure by my discouragement, or how discouraged I am. That’s really not what it’s ever been about. The key is to make sure that what you’re doing the next time you’re together on a Sunday, a day off, you’re not with the players, you can’t agonize over what did or didn’t happen, just break the tape down, go over it.
There’s a routine that we go through as coaches. How the players react to it, it’s always wait and see. You get better answers from them, because I think what I do doesn’t change, or what our staff does. And our staff’s done a great job of preparing our guys.
I mean, you mention two high-powered teams. Well, Brigham Young can score some points, too. And there are some other teams that if you don’t take certain things away that we play that they could, but they weren’t as experienced, or they had new coaches, and so the answer is I can’t measure. You asked if I was more discouraged of this, more discouraged of that. I’m not discouraged. And if, why would I get discouraged? That’s not my position. And you measure people by what it takes to discourage them.
QUESTION #7: Yeah. You touched on making shots. You touched on rebounding. But what’s the biggest thing you’ve learned about your team in the last week?
RYAN: That they’re pretty gritty. Physically, we might not match up real well with some of the teams you’re going to see us play, but I really liked how hard, especially the [North] Carolina game. I think, even though they got us on the boards, if you break it down, and you go possession by possession, and look at some of the things that our guys did, it’s very encouraging.
