Everybody knows the stat lines on Bo Ryan. In his decade of dominance at UW, Ryan has only lost eight Big Ten home games. Yes, eight. In 11 years. The Badgers have reached the NCAA Tournament in each of his 11 seasons in Madison, never finishing outside the top four in the conference standings.
But after UW lost its third-straight conference game, an ugly 59-41 loss at Michigan back on Jan. 8, I have to admit even I thought that the 2011-12 campaign was headed for a dismal conclusion.
Sitting 1-3 and tied for No. 9 in the conference, many had the Badgers squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble, perhaps due to miss the Big Dance for the first time since the 1997-98 season. And don't forget that they were about to travel to West Lafayette, a place where UW had only won once since 1972 and where Purdue had not lost since February 2010.
But on a snowy Thursday in central Indiana, Bo Ryan and crew put up a fight for their proverbial lives. And they won.
The Badgers' 67-62 win over Purdue, only their third win ever at Mackey Arena, went unnoticed by many in the college basketball world. Wisconsin still stood at 2-3 in the Big Ten and nearly blew the game despite leading by as much as 18 points in the first half.
After nearly losing at home a few days later against bottom-feeding Nebraska, the Badgers continued to offer their critics plenty of ammunition.
The slow climb back to relevance began to speed up in the back end of the short two-game homestand as UW dominated a Northwestern team that had just handed Michigan State its first conference loss.
Yet one could still point out the Wildcats were down to just seven scholarship players due to injury and while the final margin was a comfortable 20 points, the game was within two points at the half before Northwestern simply ran out of gas.
But then Wisconsin went down to Champaign and beat an Illini team that was just over a week removed from knocking off Ohio State.
So just two weeks after being left for dead, Ryan's Badgers are now 5-3 in Big Ten play, just a half game out of the conference lead. They have ended home winning streaks of 26 and 14 games and have beaten both Purdue and Illinois on the road in the same season for the first time since 1918.
Now it is impossible to deny the fact that the Badgers are rolling.
While it certainly didn't look like it when the Badgers left Ann Arbor, this resurrection should not come as a surprise given the track record of Ryan during the past decade. While the lack of a Final Four appearance may keep the national spotlight off of Madison, the consistency displayed by the Badger program is mind-boggling.
Since the 2001-02 season, Wisconsin has posted a 124-51 record in Big Ten play, tops in the league and besting national powerhouses Michigan State, Ohio State and Indiana. Ryan's .709 winning percentage in conference play is the best in the history of the Big Ten, better than greats Bob Knight, Ward Lambert and modern-day legend Tom Izzo. Before Ryan came to UW, the Badgers had been to just seven NCAA Tournaments. They have been to all ten since.
Now heading home on the heels of a four-game winning streak, the Badgers have proven once again that they are virtually incapable of staying out of the Big Ten title race. They certainly haven't gone about their title run in the conventional manner, already losing at the Kohl Center three times in a single season for just the second time in the 21st century. But they have found a way to get it done, winning with their backs against the wall on the road in hostile environments.
With the title now back within reach, every game matters. Home tests against Indiana and Ohio State are both still to come.
The Big Ten is wide open. With each team already having lost at least twice, it is crucial that the Badgers take care of business from here on out. Wisconsin cannot continue to thrive on road wins alone, they have to win and win big at the Kohl Center, a hallmark of the run that Bo Ryan has captained in this past decade. But they also have to continue to have success on the road. Winning tough games at Purdue and Illinois are worthless if they are counter-balanced by upset defeats at Penn State, Iowa or Minnesota.
It was a tall task just to get back in position and yet a tall task remains for the Badgers to continue the climb up the standings. But if there is nothing else to have been learned in the 11 years that Bo Ryan has been the head coach at Wisconsin, it is that nothing is out of the realm of possibility.
That is the Bo Ryan Rule.
