This is just....right!

UW-Platteville named the court at Williams Fieldhouse Bo Ryan Court on Saturday. The Capital Times has a plenty of quotes from former players of the 1991 NCAA DIII Championship team in a story leading up to the event.

Rob Jeter coaches the UW-Milwaukee men's basketball team but he's a Pioneer whenever he watches Wisconsin playing on television.

As Shawn Frison watches the Badgers during their current 16-game winning streak, he feels a sense of pride because he knows the UW-Platteville teams he played on laid the groundwork for this success.

Tim Decorah knows exactly how Frison feels. He gets just as excited when the Bo Ryan-coached Badgers win today as when the Ryan-coached UW-Platteville teams that he played for won 16 years ago.

This makes up for the Bear museum that the city of Platteville is thinking about building. If you want a little hint into the success of the Badgers of today, read that story.

Here is the story about the event:

It was 23 years ago - on Nov. 20, 1984 - that Bo Ryan nervously sent his UW-Platteville men's basketball team to the court at Williams Fieldhouse for the first time.

Ryan's goal that night was not to beat St. Ambrose as much as it was to take the first small step toward making Williams a gym where opponents dreaded playing.

"I walked out against St. Ambrose," Ryan said, "and basically I just wanted our guys to play hard and get the fans hooked from day one."

Mission accomplished.

The Pioneers gave Ryan his first victory as a college head coach that night and launched the greatest run for any coach and any school in NCAA Division III history. And based on the way the Platteville fans turned out Saturday when the floor at Williams Fieldhouse was named "Bo Ryan Court," they're still hooked.
...
Ryan avoided naming names because there were too many people to thank, but he did mention two: The late George Chryst, the athletic director who convinced him to come to Platteville after eight years as a UW assistant coach, and Dick Wadewitz, the coach he replaced who went out of his way to help Ryan get acclimated.

Normally stoic unless he's talking to referees, Ryan's voice cracked once - when he talked about the monumental decision he and his wife Kelly made to leave Madison in 1984.

"The whole idea of coming to Platteville," he said, "was to raise a family and to contribute to a community."

By all accounts, Ryan did both during his 15 years at Platteville. Oh, and he went 353-76 with eight conference titles and four national championships, too.
Also, the Badgers beat Iowa on National TV yesterday to go to 21-1 on the season.