Ryan left out of Hall for 2nd straight year
Madison — Bo Ryan will have to wait until next year — again. Ryan, who stepped down 12 games into his 15th season as Wisconsin’s head coach, is not part of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame’s 2016 class. The 10-member class was announced Monday in Houston at the Final Four. Ryan had been one of 14 finalists announced in February.
Ryan, 68, also was a finalist in 2015 after leading UW to the Final Four for the second consecutive season.
When he retired in December he left with a record of 747-233 in 32 seasons of coaching. That included a 364-130 mark in 14plus seasons at UW.
The Badgers under Ryan never missed the NCAA Tournament and won four Big Ten Conference regular-season titles and three Big Ten tournament titles. They never finished worse than fourth in the league.
Ryan’s Big Ten record was 172-68, for a winning percentage of .717. That is the No. 1 mark in league history.
He won four NCAA Division III national titles at UW-Platteville and coached two seasons at UWM (1999-2000 and 2000’01) before taking over the UW program.
The 10 inductees announced Monday were former NBA referee Darell Garretson and players Allen Iverson and Shaquille O’Neal; Michigan State coach Tom Izzo; the first African-American coach in a professional league, John McLendon; former WNBA star Sheryl Swoopes; and four who were selected by special committees: Zelmo Beaty from the Veterans Committee, Yao Ming from the International Committee, Cumberland Posey from the Early African-American Pioneers Committee and Jerry Reinsdorf from the Contributor Committee.
College coaches who did not make the final cut along with Ryan included Lefty Driesell, Eddie Sutton and Muffet McGraw.