Bo Ryan never failed to lift Wisconsin to a top-four finish in the Big Ten. He never failed to make the NCAA Tournament in 14 full seasons on the job in Madison. A program which had never made the NCAA Tournament from 1948 through 1993 suddenly couldn’t miss the Big Dance. That was most centrally Bo Ryan’s work.
Ryan reached the Sweet 16 for the first time in 2003. He made the Elite Eight for the first time in 2005. He forged a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in 2007. He reached back-to-back Sweet 16s for the first time in 2012. The accomplishments kept mounting, but there was always the one gap in the resume, the one thing major college basketball coaches pursue throughout their careers: the Final Four.
Dick Bennett brought the Badgers to the Final Four in the year 2000, and the 1941 team won a national championship, but it would have felt empty, and frustrating, and even a little sad if Bo Ryan didn’t walk away with at least one Final Four to his name.
As the Wisconsin Badgers met the top-seeded Arizona Wildcats in a heavyweight West Regional final in 2014 in Anaheim, every Badger fan knew how massive the moment was. The Elite Eight, not the Final Four or the national championship game, is college basketball’s most pressure-packed game for top teams. The pain of falling one stop short of the Final Four is greater than the pain of any other loss, with the possible exception of a 2 seed losing to a 15, or a 1 seed losing to a 16 (hello, Virginia!).
Wisconsin had come too far, and fought too well, and sacrificed too much, to be denied an appointment with glory. Ryan had put in too much good work over a very long period of time to be stopped one win short of college basketball’s holy grail.
This game against Arizona was always intense, because it was always close. Neither team led by more than three points in the final 12 minutes of regulation, before the contest moved into overtime. Aaron Gordon pulled down 18 rebounds for Arizona, but Frank Kaminsky delivered the performance of his career with 28 points and 11 rebounds. Wisconsin needed every last ounce of production from Kaminsky, because Sam Dekker, Ben Brust, and Nigel Hayes all hit only two field goals apiece, and Traevon Jackson was 4 of 14 from the field.
Wisconsin led by one in the final minute and got three defensive stops. The Badgers forced an Arizona miss, then drew an offensive foul in the final 10 seconds, and caused the U of A’s Nick Johnson to hold the ball too long on his final shot attempt before the buzzer.
College basketball head coaches go to the Final Four on an annual basis because they are there to attend the coaches’ convention, but they all live for the chance to be one of the four coaches on National Semifinal Saturday. When the clock hit triple-zero with the ball still in Nick Johnson’s hand, Bo Ryan knew he would finally be courtside with a team to coach at the Final Four.
It was certainly worth the wait.