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UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCENovember 12, 2012Bo RyanTHE MODERATOR: The men's basketball team opens its regular season yesterday. They play at tenth ranked Florida on Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. on ESPN2. Then host Cornell on Sunday at 5:00 p.m. at the Kohl Center. Head Coach Bo Ryan is here, and we'll take any questions. Q. Bo, what kind of conversations did you have with Zak Showalter about possibly redshirting? And now that he's going to play, what can he bring to the team this year? COACH RYAN: The conversation was simply Zak came in, stopped by the office. Came in it, we sat down and started talking‑‑ I was watching a game, looking at some clips, and he said, hey, Coach, I'm just here to tell you whatever you want me to do, I'll do it. I said, okay. I want you to grow eight inches. I want you‑‑ oh, no, things that you can possibly do. I said, all right. We'll see how it goes. He says, hey, if you want to‑‑ if you want to use me, I'm here. If not‑‑ So looking at where we are defensively and some of the hustle plays that he's capable of making and he already did yesterday, he's more or less the fourth guard, and he's contributing. Contributed yesterday, and he'll contribute some more. Q. Bo, you've talked about the difficulty sometimes of putting a schedule together and the work Greg Gard does. For this game at Florida, what makes it an attractive game for the fans, and also what do you hope to learn from it playing a team like this on the road, learn about your team? COACH RYAN: Well, we've been talking to Billy several times. A few years ago we thought we had him scheduled, and then his assistant said that Billy made the comment that like do I really want to go to Wisconsin? We were joking about it, and it was like, well, something else came up, and he had a chance to do this, and we had a chance to do that. So we've been talking through the assistants and finally got it set up for a home and home. But we do that with a lot of other people, and it's just a matter of trying to get it to where‑‑ if everybody in Division I did home and homes, as we all know, that doesn't work out. Number one, for an institution like ours, when you have X number of home games required for budget reasons, also you have fans who are a little bit, hey, we'd like to see you guys more at home. We like coming to the Kohl Center. But the thing is still you have to find people who are willing to do it, and we've already been over a thousand times the difficulties which you mentioned, so we won't go into those. We put together what you can to play the best schedule that meets all the conditions that are required to be met. Florida's our next one, and they're pretty good. We only have a half a film, though. That's all they played. Well, I haven't seen yesterday's yet because we have to get it off of Synergy. Q. Bo, Sam Dekker obviously played with Team USA and Billy Donovan was his coach. How did that benefit him, and did you get any feedback from Sam how Billy coached him and what he learned from him? COACH RYAN: You know, I never really asked him. Sam was hurt most of the time. So he missed out on a lot of the practices, some of the games. So I really didn't get a chance to discuss that with him. But these guys get a chance to see a lot of different coaches. When they go to some of these camps, they get different guys that give lectures. They have different stations. And Sam, being a coach's son, he's a listener. He takes it all in. And I'm sure he learned something from Billy as well as anybody else. But I probably should ask him. Q. Bo, what kind of challenges does Florida's press create? I think people tend to say‑‑ COACH RYAN: I think their media people are just like you guys‑‑ inquisitive, smart. Q.  Okay. I walked into that one. I'll take it. COACH RYAN: Not the right answer? Q. Not really what I was looking for. COACH RYAN: Pressure? Q. Yeah, what the guards need to do. But how much of it is everyone on the court working together to break a press? COACH RYAN: And that's it. Angles, we talk a lot about 45 degree angles, spacing, ball fakes. They can bring some heat, especially at home. They've turned a lot of teams over many times, and I'm sure they're planning on doing the same with us, and we just have to not fall into the traps very often. Make sure we're reading the traps before they come, retreat dribbles, not one dribble pickups, not‑‑ there's a list of about 20 things that, in my mind, you go over about half‑court, where to catch a ball in relationship to half‑court, how close to the sideline. You got the ten‑second clock on. If you think about it too much, you start to sweat. You get nervous. But it's all read and react. And then if you can hurt it every once in a while by getting a score at the other end, that helps. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? Q. Since Josh went down with the injury, whatever maybe initial shock there was, how have you seen, especially the point guards, deal with it, embrace the challenge, maybe knowing that they're going to get more minutes in the first two games of the exhibition and practices? COACH RYAN: We have pretty smart young men that know the right answers to give to you guys when asked, well, do you think you can handle this? It's easy to talk, and our guys have said the right things. But come on, it boils down to this. We go down to Florida and play. We've already played one. Those guys feel good about the fact that they're getting a chance to play, but all these questions will be answered, or at least relatively speaking, to a particular game as to how they react. Until you're in it, you're not quite sure, but you have to go in it with the idea that, hey, I faced pressure in high school. So I should be able to handle this if I‑‑ my teammates work with me, I work with my teammates. Beating pressure and handling those types of things as a point guard is a lot to do with the other people around the point guard. All the parts have to work together. So it isn't just on a particular person by themselves. They're not on an island. Q. With Florida being a top ten team, how does that prepare you guys‑‑ granted, it's early in the season, but how does that prepare you for Big Ten with so many top ranked teams in the conference? COACH RYAN: I don't know. You know, we go to Ohio State last year and win at the end of the year, and I didn't know where they were ranked. Florida's ranked in the top ten? Okay, I haven't seen a list. I didn't look. I just know by watching the half a game that I've watched that they're pretty good. It's like, boy, these guys are good. And they know how to win. They know how to play. Billy knows what he's doing. He's been there. So whether they were a top ten team or not, we're going down there with the same approach. We're not changing our philosophy simply because of a ranking of a team. Q. Are all four of those guys, can they all play point in your mind? Are they interchangeable, and will roles be more defined as the season goes on? Where are you at with that? COACH RYAN: When the shot clock gets down and we face more defensive pressure, then you start to see who can make plays and where the better decision‑making opportunities arise and who makes them. So it's just like anything else. It's what we do. We teach. We coach. We work with guys. We see what they can and what they can't handle. If they're weak in an area, you try to improve them. We'll find out some things on Wednesday. For me to say this guy's better at this, this guy's better with that group, they really haven't played that much. So it's hard to get a true read. THE MODERATOR: Anything else for Coach? All right. Thanks. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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