Wisconsin vs Wisconsin-Green Bay Basketball Recap

Wisconsin-Green Bay 88, Wisconsin 84 (OT)

In order to appreciate the magnitude of what happened on a wild Wednesday evening at the Resch Center in Green Bay, Wis., you need to realize how intimate the world of Wisconsin scholastic basketball really is.

When the Phoenix of Wisconsin-Green Bay turned back the state's flagship university from Madison, Coach Tod Kowalczyk didn't just engineer a significant upset or put his team in improved position to snag at at-large NCAA Tournament berth out of the Horizon League. The Green Bay coach presided over the kind of accomplishment that will be cherished by his players and fans for a lifetime. It's all because of the cozy relationships that exist in the land of the Chessehead.

Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan - who’s Badgers lost to Green Bay for the first time in the past 16 meetings - wasn't just the coach of the big bad state university that waltzed into town with expectations of another win over the Phoenix. Before Ryan gained the Wisconsin job, he worked at the "hyphenated" schools in the state as he worked through college's lower divisions on his way to the top.

From 1984 through 1999, Ryan led Wisconsin-Platteville to a 352-76 record and four NCAA Division III national championships. A few years ago, UW-Platteville honored the Boss Badger by naming its piece hardwood " Bo Ryan Court." An all-in-the-family vibe surrounds Ryan's relationship with the school that gave him his first big break as a head coach, and that kind of connection - between the University of Wisconsin's basketball program and the people of Platteville - is similarly present in Green Bay.

The folks in the town famous for Packer football also enjoy a close kinship - plus a spirited rivalry - with the men from Madison. Green Bay basketball diehards will cheer for the Badgers if other in-state teams are out of the picture, but when the Phoenix confront UW on the court, the temperature quickly rises. For one thing, many of the players on UW-Green Bay were either ignored or ultimately turned down by Ryan and his UW staff. There are only so many players to go around in one state, so for every prize recruit Ryan has snagged in Madison with his Big Ten behemoth, there are several players who wind up at the "hyphen" schools... schools like UW-Platteville, UW-Milwaukee (where Ryan coached from 1999-2001), and - last but not least - Green Bay.

How sweet it must be, then, for Bryquis Perine (22 points in this four-point overtime win), Rahmon Fletcher (18 points before leaving with a second-half injury), Randy Berry (13 points and 12 rebounds), and the rest of the Phoenix's roster, who secured Green Bay's first triumph over Wisconsin since 1994.
Speaking of 1994... That’s the year UW-Green Bay, behind the leadership of a certain coach named Dick Bennett, won its only NCAA Tournament game, over Jason Kidd and California in a 12-seed upset over a 5-seed.

If you're wondering, yes, that's the same Dick Bennett who - like Ryan in subsequent years - would leave a Wisconsin "hyphen" school and take over the main program in the state. Bennett directed the Badgers to the 2000 Final Four in Indianapolis before losing to Michigan State in the national semifinals. He was the man Green Bay claimed and loved for so long, but he was also the man who left for Wisconsin and its Big Ten riches. Bo Ryan's journey from Platteville to Madison acquired a similar trajectory, so for the Phoenix to win this game means more than having a better shot come Selection Sunday.

This overtime triumph is significant beyond its postseason implications because it allows Green Bay to say that it has finally struck back at the school that plucked away its head coach in the mid-1990s, just when the Phoenix were at the height of their powers. Now that Bo Ryan has been knocked down a peg, and now that the stealers of Dick Bennett have been put in their place, the UW-Green Bay basketball community can enjoy bragging rights that will last throughout the season in the state of Wisconsin.

Yes, that's what an upset victory in overtime can do for a Horizon League program that's hoping to do big things in 2009 and 2010.

> Find more Big Ten football news online at Big Ten Fans!