With a home record of 63-3 in his four-plus seasons at Wisconsin, it is quite evident Bo Ryan does not lose at the Kohl Center too often. That type of success must be an intimidating statistic for most opposing teams coming to play in Madison. Yet, if there is any opposing head coach who knows how to win at the Kohl Center himself, it is Rob Jeter.
In his four seasons as an assistant coach at Wisconsin, Jeter's teams accumulated 58 wins. If Jeter and his UW-Milwaukee squad want to add to that total tonight, however, they will have to do it against Ryan, Jeter's former mentor.
'This is what we did when we first started playing when we were four or five years old, picking teams and going against friends in the neighborhood,' Ryan said.
Going up against Ryan is not something Jeter is used to doing. In fact, the pair has been nearly inseparable for the better part of the last two decades. It was in 1987 that Jeter first took the court as a player for UW-Platteville, then coached by Ryan. Jeter was the team captain of the Pioneers 1991 Division III National Championship team, and after going overseas to play professionally, returned to serve on Ryan's coaching staff at Platteville in 1994.
'I would say over the course of the years, that [Jeter] would probably be the most competitive player I coached. There are some that are real close, but he definitely likes to compete,' Ryan said.
Jeter left Ryan briefly in 1998 to serve as an assistant at Marquette under Mike Deane, but when Ryan left Platteville for UW-Milwaukee the next season, Jeter quickly followed. At Milwaukee, Ryan and Jeter helped to completely revive the Panthers men's basketball program, posting the first two seasons over .500 in nearly a decade and increasing attendance by over 300 percent. Two years later, when Ryan took the head coaching job at Wisconsin, he brought Jeter with him once again.
At Wisconsin, where Jeter served as the Badgers' lead recruiter, the pair posted some gaudy win totals. The Badgers won two Big Ten regular season titles and one Big Ten tournament during those four years, and qualified for the NCAA tournament four times, advancing to both the Elite Eight and the Sweet 16 once. The Badgers also posted a school-record 25 wins in each of the last two seasons.
'People move through the profession and there are adjustments that are made. It is all part of the experience of coming together as a team as a coaching staff, as well as a team on the floor. So, obviously without Rob being here it is different, but he got a chance and it is all for the best,' Ryan said.
In taking his first head coaching position at UWM, Jeter took over a program fresh off a Cinderella run to the Sweet 16 of last year's NCAA tournament. Although four starters returned from that team, the Panthers did lose star sharpshooter Ed McCants, and replacing a coach as popular in Milwaukee as Bruce Pearl would be a challenge for anyone, especially with the lofty expectations established by last season.
One of the biggest questions regarding Jeter's transition to Milwaukee was whether or not he would stick to the frenetic full court style of play that brought Pearl's Panthers so much success in recent years. And while this year's Panthers may not play quite as up-tempo as Pearl's teams, they have averaged a healthy 77 points per game so far, in getting out to a 4-2 start. Both losses have come on the road, one of which was at No. 5 Memphis.
Milwaukee's match-up in Madison tonight against Wisconsin will prove to be Jeter's next big test. While the Badgers look to extend their home winning streak to 11 games, Jeter will try to use everything he learned from Bo Ryan over the years to do one thing: beat Bo Ryan.
