Bo Ryan retires from Wisconsin

After Wisconsin's 64-49 win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, multiple sources reported that Ryan would retire immediately. His statement can be found below:

Startling stuff out of Wisconsin. Bo Ryan retires effective immediately. Statement: pic.twitter.com/SukTftFYiK

— Brendan F. Quinn (@BFQuinn) December 16, 2015

Ryan leaves with a 364-130 (172-68) record at Wisconsin and a 747-233 record overall, with stops at Wisconsin-Platteville, where he won four D-III national championships, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and finally Madison, where he guided the Badgers to 14 NCAA appearances in 14 seasons, including a 36-win season last year culminating in a Final Four.

Assistant coach Greg Gard, who was in line to take over when Ryan announced--before recanting--that he would retire this off-season, will take over as head coach.

Thomas Speth on Bo's Retirement

This year has zero effect on Bo's legacy. He's been a great coach for a decade and half. He's been essentially the only coach I known. He is Wisconsin basketball to me. All my heroes growing up from Kirk Penney and Devin Harris on, he coached them all. He's accomplished more than every Wisconsin coach combined up to him. As far as the future goes, this has been looking like a lost season regardless.

This might actually be good for Wisconsin, as now we can circumvent the stupid rule that the job has to be publicly posted. Gard is a great coach and a disciple of Bo. If he doesn't get the permanent job there will be a lot of upset Badger fans including me. Going forward, Bo leaves this program in better shape than anyone could've imagined it would be in 14 years ago. Thanks Bo, enjoy retirement.