Coming off an 81-42 thrashing of UW-Parkside, the Badgers will close out the exhibition schedule tonight against UW-Platteville, the program that head coach Bo Ryan led for 15 years prior leaving for Division I basketball.

In his long tenure at Platteville, Ryan amassed the highest winning percentage in Division III history (.823) with a record of 353-76. When he made the move to Wisconsin, after spending two seasons at UW-Milwaukee, Ryan brought two members of his Platteville coaching staff with him, assistant coaches Rob Jeter and Greg Gard.

Jeter and Gard each played for the Pioneers as well before joining Ryan’s Platteville staff. Jeter remains Platteville’s all-time career field goal percentage leader after shooting .601 in a Pioneers uniform. Gard’s Platteville ties are even deeper, as his younger brother, Jeff, currently serves as an assistant coach at Platteville under head coach Paul Combs.

While Ryan acknowledges his coaching staff’s ties to Platteville, he is confident they will not affect the team’s preparation.

“Yeah, I am excited about [playing Platteville] and yeah, I will feel inside some things that you don’t normally feel maybe for a game, but that will quickly pass once we start competing,” Ryan said.

Tonight’s game will be the first-ever meeting between Wisconsin and Platteville. The matchup is the second in-state showdown of the exhibition schedule, as the Badgers have chosen for the first time to schedule their exhibition games against Division II and Division III opponents rather than taking on international, AAU or NBDL competition.

Coach Ryan, who was instrumental in changing the Badgers’ exhibition scheduling policy, says he learned a lot more about his team after taking on Parkside than he did in previous contests against international and AAU opposition. Ryan expects the showdown against Platteville to be equally valuable.

“What was nice about the Parkside game was [seeing] how we handled certain screens, staggers, transition, some things that we did or didn’t do well,” Ryan said. “So I really liked last Wednesday’s game from that standpoint, and I’m sure we’ll get a lot from the Platteville game too.”

Headlining the Platteville attack is guard Brad Reitzner, who led the Pioneers with 17.8 points per game last season. The senior from Stoughton, Wis., took preseason All-America honors from Street & Smith magazine after an impressive 2003 campaign in which he earned first team all-WIAC honors and emerged as a clutch performer with three game-winning field goals.

Joining Reitzner in the backcourt is a pair of promising juniors, LeVon Crawford and Clay Dean. Crawford emerged as an athletic playmaker last season, using his impressive vertical leap to pace the Pioneers in rebounding (6.0 per game) and offensive rebounding (2.86 per game). The 6-foot-3 junior pulled down 16 rebounds, including 11 offensive boards, against UW-Stout last season.

Dean, who sat out last season after transferring from UW-Superior, adds depth to the Platteville backcourt. The 5-foot-8 junior was named Superior’s male Scholar-Athlete of the Year in the 2002-03 season.

The Pioneers return their top two scorers from last season in Reitzner and forward Brandon Temperly, who averaged 13.0 points per game last season. Temperly also hauled in 5.2 rebounds per game during the 2003-04 campaign.

Though Platteville is poised to improve on last season’s 16-12 mark with its top players returning, the Pioneers will need a remarkable effort to overcome Wisconsin in their first game against a Division I opponent in school history.

The Badgers will likely cycle through a number of players as they did against Parkside, when every player who dressed for the game saw at least five minutes of court time and 10 players saw at least 14 minutes of action.

After putting up 13 points on 4-5 shooting against Parkside in his first collegiate action, forward Brian Butch is questionable for tonight’s game. Butch, along with freshman Greg Stiemsma and sophomore Jason Chappell, have been held out of practice this week and could miss tonight’s exhibition.

“They may not be practicing today. They may not be playing tomorrow,” Ryan said Monday. “I don’t know. Sometimes there are things that go on from maybe past injuries. We just do like any other year. You just go with what you have.”

Guard DeAaron Williams’ status for tonight’s game is also uncertain, as the freshman may sit out as he did against Parkside to preserve the possibility of redshirting this season. Though uncertainty surrounds a large portion of Wisconsin’s freshman class heading into tonight’s matchup, one thing is certain: the people of Platteville will be on hand to witness it.

“It will be really neat to see the city of Platteville here,” Ryan said. “Platteville will be here. They’ll be here in numbers; you’ll see quite a few of them.”