Bo Ryan

On Ethan Happ getting a lot of post touches…
"Well, he is awfully comfortable in there. He's a natural around the basket. He works hard for position and you reward people that work hard. His teammates count on him getting open in there and he has good hands. His hands are twice the size of most peoples. He's a presence in there. He's going to be a factor and he kind of showed that tonight."
 
On Alex Illikainen's comfort level…
"Well you know we're hoping that that's what we're doing out there when we practice. That we're trying to get guys to get better and get more comfortable -- Charlie (Thomas) was comfortable. You know, you never look at the opposition; what you look at is the presence of players on the court. Their movement. They were comfortable. Khalil (Iverson), comfortable. We'll find out when we scrimmage and when we start playing obviously, but it was nice to see how comfortable a guy like Charlie was with his face up jumper that he's been really good with in practice. I mean he's shooting close to 60%. But you know he'll play against bigger, longer guys, he'll have to work on some counter moves."
 
On Andy Van Vliet eligibility situation…
"I don't know. It doesn't take very long once you send in the appeal. His is an unusual circumstance but that didn't stop all the other teams in the United States from trying to get him. But how about people chanting, 'Free Van Vliet! Free Van Vliet!' I couldn't say that 10 times real fast, I don't know if you guys can."
 
On how the team looked overall…
"Well, I thought they did some nice things. There are still some weaknesses of guys that are veterans; some things that I'm sure will be pointed out to them tomorrow when I break the clips down. But that's what we do. I've been fortunate enough to have guys that have listened and learned and improved, so we'll find out tomorrow how they react to constructive criticism and also to a couple 'Atta boys!'

We do the positives too so other people can learn. 'How did he make that move? How was that so effective?' Well here's how. We break it down and say, 'look at the angle on the receiver, look at the hand target. If I'm a passer and I see a hand target that is proper I'm going to throw to it.' Some guys, that's why they catch the ball more in the post than others. We call that passing and catching. Everybody talks about passing drills. Our drills are passing and catching drills -- and targets and ball fakes by the passer. All the things that seem so elementary have carried us forever."
 
On when the Van Vliet situation first came up on the radar…
"Well it's just something that, as they look at it, because of how many years he was in school, the Belgium system is the toughest in the world. Tougher than any other place. And that's not just me rating. It's a long story that we'll see how the appeal goes. They have to reject it initially I guess. You're allowed one year after you're finished. We've been dealing with it all along but why worry about it if we weren't competing yet? But they had it for a while and then decided today that they were going to have to do an appeal. And appeals don't take that long."
 

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Wisconsin Player Quotes

Freshman F Ethan Happ
On his 2015-16 debut:
"I had my ups and downs. I had some spots where I could've done better but like you said, it's been a while since I've been out there in the rotation like that so it was a lot of fun."

On what was it like not seeing some of the veterans like Kaminsky and Dekker out on the floor?
"It was different, definitely a lot different. There were a lot of guys last year that really calmed us down whenever we were hectic or anything like that. It even goes back to the locker room, it's weird not having those guys in the locker room when you walk in."

Freshman F Alex Illikainen
On his first action at the Kohl Center:
"Yeah the past couple weeks have been really good for me. I've built up my confidence a little bit and the pace of play is starting to slow down. It's getting a little easier to make moves and stuff like that, so I'm definitely feeling a lot more confident."

Freshman F Charlie Thomas
On ability to contribute throughout the year:
"I think I'm still on the same track. I'm just trying to do all the little things to get on the floor and stay out there, like rebounding, playing defense, and hustling, all the things Coach Bo emphasizes, especially to us freshman. So I'm just trying to do all the little things." 

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UW-River Falls Head Coach
Opening Statement:
"First of all, I would like to thank Coach Ryan and the Badger program for doing this each and every year. I can't even explain how much my guys really enjoy this experience, parents, my son, my family. I mean everybody probably. Just a ton of people that are really excited about coming down and doing this, it's a big deal for us. And so I would like to thank Bo for doing this every year now. I know that (our) conference and Gary (Karner), we really enjoy doing this is, first of all thank you for that. I'm kind of happy with how my guys played the first 10 minutes of the game. They probably bounced pretty hard and made some shots and kind of played like we want to play but obviously their skill and their size, and their length and their strength and everything else eventually wears on you a bit. Then we kind of got out of whack and things can go downhill pretty fast. The second half wasn't very fun, but first half wasn't too bad."
 
On Wisconsin still being a quality team after losing so many players from a year ago:
"Obviously you've got two very good players, that you know, tonight they can do whatever they want in (Bronson) Koenig and (Nigel) Hayes, but I like a lot of their new guys who played tonight. I think the future is obviously very bright for them."