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Bo Ryan: Jarrod Uthoff can play anywhere he wants — except for 25 schools
National media not in Ryan's corner on this one
This Bo Ryan-Jarrod Uthoff story has gone from a little odd to really bizarre.
Uthoff is the Cedar Rapids Jefferson grad who recently asked for his release from Wisconsin’s men’s basketball program after one season, in which he redshirted. Uthoff is a 6-foot-8 player of considerable potential. He was Iowa’s high school Mr. Basketball in 2011.
Ryan is the longtime Badgers head coach.
Bo Ryan (AP photo)
Uthoff’s request caught Ryan off-guard. Ryan granted it, with the stipulation that Uthoff couldn’t go on to play for any other Big Ten school (not unusual), in-state rival Marquette (OK), and Iowa State (What? Wisconsin doesn’t play Iowa State.)
Then, Virginia asked Ryan for permission to speak to Uthoff. And Ryan put the entire ACC on Uthoff’s no-play list.
Is it simply because Wisconsin plays one regular-season game per year against ACC teams and Ryan doesn’t want to run the risk of having Uthoff try to beat his team? That seems like quite a reach to me.
Luckily for Uthoff, Creighton and Northern Iowa haven’t made the list. So he still has options. But they are fewer than he would have imagined last week.
Look, Ryan has never struck me as disloyal or dishonest. And there are two sides to every story. But this is weird. And it isn’t playing well at all nationally. ESPN Radio’s Colin Cowherd was dogging Ryan about it on his Tuesday show.
“It’s amazing to me,” Cowherd said. (See video below. Cowherd even called Iowa “a good basketball state.”)
The Big Lead certainly didn’t mince words about it.
This ESPN.com post by Eamonn Brennan makes an obvious point, but a good one. If Ryan wanted to bolt to another job elsewhere in college basketball tomorrow, he could go without barriers.
And it’s very easy and logical for Hawkeye fans to cite Iowa releasing freshman recruit Ben Brust to Wisconsin in 2010 after Iowa had a coaching change following Brust’s commitment to the school. Not that Iowa had much choice. A committee of Big Ten faculty representatives voted in favor of Wisconsin’s appeal to be able to sign Brust.
Whatever Ryan’s motivation, it looks nothing but vindictive. It also adds to the fuel of those who think major-college athletics do a very good job of exploiting their athletes.
Jarrod Uthoff with friends after a Cedar Rapids Jefferson game in 2011
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Bo just made a huge error and showed us his true colors. This will haunt him in the recruitment process in the future. He can definitely forget about recruiting Iowa from now on. What a self centered jerk. Oh BTW, Your offense is so boring I’d rather watch a washed out railroad bridge than watch you and in the future I will. The badgers have now hit bottom in the Big 10 popularity wise. Bo, You really suck! What are you afraid of? Coward!
I’m not as ready to throw Ryan under the proverbial bus. Everybody who comes to play for Wisconsin should know what the offense and style of play will be like for all four/five years. And it’s no secret that Ryan doesn’t have a country club atmosphere in his program.
But transfers are a fact of life in college basketball and will continue to be. I fully understand preventing someone from transferring within your conference or state. But Iowa State and the ACC? That’s what’s brought on the criticism, and I think it’s fair.
To me as a fomer old Iowa FB player, this situation is a good example of what is now wrong with B10 athletics. These kids coming out of HS don’t really know what they are geting into … much less understand how the league can give them a lot of stupid problems if they decide to change their mind like this. I am very disappointed in coach Ryan here, but not surprised. His arrogance should finally be recognized for what it is. I hope all of our HS BB players (and coaches) will seriously think about this. I hope that Mr Uthoff can find some justice here … and good luck to him.
Speaking of Brust, I watched a pretty good sampling of Wisky games this year (8-9 games during different parts of the season) and kept my eye on Brust for some of them. Honestly, he’s young yet but I’m not sure what we truly missed out on other than another body to run up and down the court. He MIGHT have been a good backup to Marble this year (who did a GREAT job playing out of position) but I’m not sure how much we missed overall – barring Herculean improvement in the future. I guess I could be a little too excited about our incoming class, but we haven’t had this much hype with newcomers that I can recall since BJ- Ed – Roy #1…
This is beyond bizarre. And adding to the comments above, it’s perfectly ok for Wisconsin football to seek and get another ACC quarterback seeking to transfer to another school, for 2 years in a row now, and Ryan pulls this. Never liked Ryan in any way, shape, or form and this is just another testament as to why.
This isn’t to take sides, Evan, but in fairness you should know Ryan is on record as being strongly opposed to the rule Wisconsin football has used to get those transfer quarterbacks, Russell Wilson and Danny O’Brien.
He was asked about this winter and didn’t pull any punches. So there’s no hypocrisy involved there.
The hypocrisy Mike, is that the Wisconsin athletic department is allowing Bo Ryan to behave in this manner.
They had no problem with Bret Bielema going out two years in a row to find a new starting QB to transfer to WIsconsin.
They had no problem with Bo Ryan recruiting Ben Brust after Todd Lickliter was fired at Iowa.
Ryan’s actions obviously have the blessing of the Wisconsin athletic department–otherwise they wouldn’t allow this kind of actions to be taken against Uthoff.
The way Ryan is behaving..you’d think that Jared Uthoff was the second coming of Michael Jordan or LeBron James.
Its a classic case of cutting one’s nose off to spite their face. This is something that will hurt future recruiting..there’s no doubt about that.
Quite frankly–Wisconsin needs all the quality recruits they can get considering they haven’t made it past the Sweet Sixteen since 2005 or won an outright Big 10 title since 2008.
I agree with everything you said except the final paragraph, Todd.
Ryan’s program have been to the NCAAs in each of his 11 years there. They have an incoming recruit in Sam Dekker, who is one of the highest-regarded power forward prospects in the nation.
I doubt that recruiting will be hurt because players will think “If I transfer out of here there could be trouble,” because I doubt any player comes in who even remotely thinks about the possibility of transferring.
But you’re right. Wisconsin has bungled this in the court of public opinion, and that’s never a good thing.
MIke..you know as well as anyone that getting into the NCAA tournament is one thing–advancing past the Sweet Sixteen on a consistent basis is another.
Wisconsin isn’t at the level that schools like Michigan State and Ohio State in terms of recruiting that kind of talent to have that consistency.–the last thing they need is to send the message to a potential top recruit that if things go south–Coach will make your life hell.
Plus, recruits and their parents–see all this going on..and start to ask questions.
Why did Uthoff want to leave in the first place? Did Wisconsin mislead Uthoff about what their plan was for him? Why the vindictive attitude towards a kid who wants to make a change in direction?
Todd: We can go round and round about the status of Wisconsin basketball. I think it’s pretty good. The Big Ten won-lost record of Ryan’s is fantastic. But no, it’s not a national program, and Wisconsin hasn’t hit the level of MSU or OSU.
But we’re basically in agreement about the rest. After hearing Ryan on the radio this morning, I’m convinced he’s not going to willingly give an inch, and that’s a mistake.
The future of Badger recruiting is at stake here, even if Ryan is not aware of it. I’ve got a feeling a bright man who is in charge of the Wisconsin Sports Department will reenact the scene from Stanley Kubrick’s classic “A Clockwork Orange”, complete with a photo op of Barry feeding Jarrod a steak and giving the thumbs up sign as he signs the paperwork for granting Jerrod a full release with no restrictions. Just my guess but would love to see it.