DAVID STLUKA
W
isconsin's preparation on the
day prior to playing Purdue at
the Kohl Center was no different than it had been on the day
prior to playing Michigan or any
other opponent. Only the results differed.
During last Saturday's practice, UW head coach
Bo Ryan stood at midcourt with a manager at his
side charting possessions between the eight players
in the rotation and the scout team.
Ryan whistled when he wanted play stopped. He
made comments to individuals when warranted.
"They don't need speeches at practices,'' he said.
"It's point specific.''
The Badgers will generally do between 35 and
40 possessions the day before a game. That works
out to about 90 minutes. "We always cut back timewise,'' Ryan said. "We never cut back effort-wise.''
Ryan has been keeping track of possessions since
1972, when he was hired as a history teacher, the
36 ยป VARSITY
MAR CH 7, 2013
assistant baseball coach and the head basketball
coach in Brookhaven, Pa. He made $4,000.
His early training has been paying dividends ever
since.
"If we go 10 possession and we have seven points,
then they run because they don't have one point or
more,'' he said. "If we give up more than one point
per possession, they'll also run.''
Ryan might be focused on 'What are we scoring
off?'' If so, he said, "I'm thinking, 'Are we getting
more off a ball screen? Are we getting more off post
touches? Are we shooting more 3s?'''
As a former prep quarterback in football and college point guard in basketball, Ryan has always felt
comfortable reading the floor, which allows him to
break down every action in the possession.
"We always film the practice so we can always go
back and look at something,'' he said. "I looked at
Friday's practice and I saw a couple of things that
we could do a bit better.''
