The season started off, on a pretty good start during the whole pre-season kick off start. But once the regular season kicked off. The Badgers where struggling. Trying to go off of that momentum that they had during the NCAA March Madness. There was something a bit off about the starting of the season. It was not the team, who was finding the grove with each other on the court with major holes in the roster: Sam Dekker, Traevon Jackson, and Frank Kaminsky. But there was something a bit off that was in the air. The players had nothing to do with that.
On December 15th, 2015 Bo Ryan step down from the head coaching job. His reason was, it was the prefect time to step down because with the team finding themselves on a losing streak. Luckily the Badgers won their game that day against Texas A&M - Corpus Christi, that is when Ryan thought it was the right time to step down. That all I remember finding out after work when I was having dinner. Someone told Justin or Jake, my friends and coworkers, to turn on the TV because Bo Ryan just retired. I remember everyone shocked faces perfectly. News broke like wildfire (link 1 and 2). Shortly after assistant coach Greg Gard stepped up and took the new role of the head coach.
But another rumor surfaced around late winter and early spring. The first time I heard it was in my Feature Writing class in school. We where talking about what would make a good investigative story would be Watergate, Benghazi e-mails & etc. where all good examples, but our professor took it down to a more local level, something that had to do with the city of Madison or Madison College that would be easier on us on our final projects (we smartly stuck to Madison College for projects). So we all where talking about local news event, and that is when I heard rumors where going around about how Bo Ryan had an affair and that was why he was "forced" to retire, also apparently the woman was from Waunakee too, all the stuff in the rumor mill about it. I was sitting there in shock because I was not sure what to make of it all. I personally do not know and nor care it's true. Its like reading something on the internet you think is fishy, you take it with a grain of salt. That is what I exactly did. Here is an article form the Wisconsin State Journal from March, and another one just recently this summer in June. What do you think? Fact or fiction? It's all up to you.
After Bo Ryan's mysteriously stepping down and with the new head coach stepping in. The team found themselves doing pretty well. Coach Gard slowly, and surely is gaining everyone trusts that he is a good regular season coach. But once around tournament time. Oh, boy. That was not pretty. Especially the B1G tournament, the Badgers got eliminated the first round. But luckily we got ourselves back dancing into the NCAA March Madness tournament.
Hopes where high, and we all wanted our second chance to win our first ever NCAA tournament. Well, looks on that we have to wait. Why such a cynic? I am not. I am looking at this from an realist and idealist approach. We where lucky to get in first off, every year that we have been in the tournament. We where lucky last year to get a number ONE seed! That is a very difficult thing to achieve. Then finding our selves in back to back Final Fours, again, very difficult! Also advancing into the finals last year, THAT WAS AMAZING! It's very rare for us, as a basketball program to do that. So that why it was so, so, so, SO magically, and something that we should not take for granted. Let's not make Elmo's mistake and wishing for Christmas everyday of the year, because what makes that holiday and time of the year so special will wear off and it will feel like nothing. Another thing I would like to point out about the magical-ness of this going to the Final Four two years in a row is the fact that something about Bo Ryan and the team clicked. They had that magical chemistry that made them do very amazing things in the last two NCAA tournaments.
With that whole there has to be some kind of connect between the coach and team being said, I felt the connection between both players and coaching staff. But looks like other factors in the NCAA tournament had other plans for this Wisconsin Badgers squad. It was nice to see Bronson Koenig save the team's asses with the last second three pointer that made the team continue dancing on to the Sweet 16! But during our Sweet 16 game is where our trip ended this year for our NCAA March Madness adventure.
Branson Koenig saves the day! Sorry Bill Murry...
I hope the 2016-17 will be a less a of a dramatic season for you guys. I don't think you need rumors surround your ex-head coach swimming around. But I am glad that you guys as a team, coaches and players, let none of that stuff get to your head. I have hopes for you doing well next year, and hopefully winning that first overall NCAA championship, we all want you to win. Boys, you are still Wisconsin's Basketball team. (Don't tell the Milwaukee Bucks, I said that...)
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