One streak will have to come to an end when the No. 1-ranked Illinois men’s basketball team visits the Kohl Center tonight. Illinois extended their winning streak to 19 games by beating Iowa at home 73-69 in overtime Nov. 20. Wisconsin’s extended its school-record home winning streak to 38 games with a come-from–behind win against Michigan State Jan. 16. However, all of this does not concern Badgers’ head coach Bo Ryan.
“I’ve never talked about streaks or gotten into that kind of stuff,” Ryan explained. He made it clear that his team’s focus was on Illinois and not on either streak that was at stake. When referring to the streak’s he responded, “that is for other people to talk about.” Ryan says he was just brought up in this manner.
“There are days on the playground when you might win 10, 12 games in a row, but tomorrow you might lose a few in a row,” he said. “You just gotta get ready for the next one.”
All the build up surrounding the game does not seem to be penetrating Bo Ryan’s world. This is the biggest game of the regular season for the Badgers. In the last 26 years, the Badgers have faced only one No. 1-ranked team — Kentucky in the 2003 NCAA Tournament. Before that game, the last top-ranked team they played was Michigan State in 1979. Magic Johnson lead the Spartans to a 64-55 win over the Badgers in that contest. “There is hype for this game,” Bo Ryan questioned comically. “I just have some great hiding places where I can look at film and just concentrate on the important things.”
The longest current home-winning streak in the nation is in jeopardy of ending when the Badgers host Illinois. One would think coach Ryan would want his players to feel the need to defend the home court. However, this could not be further from the truth.
“I have never once said anything in the locker room or outside the locker room about the streak,” Ryan said.
The coach preaches a philosophy that involves winning regardless of where or who you play. When trying to explain his success at home, Ryan uses the fact that he has success on the road as well.
“Our record on the road isn’t all that bad,” Ryan said. “I don’t sense anything different when we are warming up for an away game as opposed to a home game. I don’t, in my mind, expect us to play any differently.”
Illinois is currently second in the Big Ten in scoring offense averaging 81.4 points per game. They have a balanced offensive attack, which makes them very difficult to defend. Another factor that makes their offense tricky to stop is their willingness to share the ball. Guards Deron Williams, Dee Brown and Luther Head are all in the conference top five in assists per game. Ryan does not feel any need to custom his game plan for playing the Illinois offense.
“We are not a program that changes a lot of things in midstream,” Ryan said. “It is pretty much the same Illinois team we faced, only [they] are a year older and a year wiser.” Coach Ryan plans to execute his game plan on his end of the court better than Illinois is able to execute its game plan. With the top-scoring defense in the Big Ten, Wisconsin has every reason to believe that they can stop the offensive attack of Illinois.
One streak will come to an end tonight. Bo Ryan may not be focusing on it, but the hype is hard to avoid. For the players it might be extremely difficult to ignore.
“We had a good practice yesterday and hopefully we’ll have another one today and just prepare like we usually do,” Ryan said. “Consistency is a great quality to have in your life, not just in basketball.”