Anyone familiar with Wisconsin men's head basketball coach Bo Ryan knows he rarely makes excuses, whether it is for his players, his own coaching or the team's overall play. But even Ryan acknowledged the role fatigue played in the Badgers' poor performance in their loss to Iowa Saturday.
Well, you can't combat it because the schedule is what it is and that's the way it works out,\ Ryan said at a weekly press conference Monday. ""Fatigue begins in the mind, I've always thought. I mean, your body is going to get tired, but adrenaline can usually overcome a lot of that. But if you think you're tired, you are. We didn't do some things as well as we normally do.""
However, he was quick to point out that fatigue was only a minor factor compared to a tenacious Iowa team that played a complete 40-minute game in order to send its seniors out with a win.
""Well, and another reason why [we] maybe mentally fatigued and physically fatigued is that Iowa was bringing it,"" Ryan said. ""That was a big test of endurance, and we came in on the short side of the endurance test there. Iowa won the endurance test. And by doing that, they won the game.""
When asked if he would show the game tape against Iowa in order to point out the Badgers' mistakes, Ryan insisted that would be the wrong way to look at the game.
""There's a lot of good things and there's some nice things that we did. It isn't just a film to show mistakes,"" Ryan said. ""Teachers don't teach and only talk to the students about their mistakes. When you do a review of a quiz when you teach in the classroom, you go over maybe some of the common mistakes that people made on it, but it also tells you the areas of strength and you don't want to get away from the areas of strength.""
As the Big Ten season draws to a close, talk invariably begins to swing to post-season accolades. While junior forward Alando Tucker is a near lock for First Team All-Big Ten honors, he is in a tightly bunched pack in the race for Conference Player of the Year, along with players such as Ohio State's Terrence Dials, Illinois' Dee Brown, Iowa's Greg Brunner and Michigan State's Shannon Brown.
However, though he may be slightly biased, if the choice for Player of the Year was up to Ryan, he knows who would get his vote.
""I'm saying Alando is the most valuable player because he's done the most to help our team,"" he said. ""But is he valuable to us, is he the most valuable? To me, yes.""
\
