Wisconsin
Wisconsin coach Greg Gard lobbies for mentor Bo Ryan to get into the Naismith Hall of Fame: ‘It’s a no-brainer’
Wisconsin’s Greg Gard states case for Bo Ryan to make Hall of Fame
Ryan, who spent 14 seasons at Wisconsin’s coach, won four Division III national championships at UW-Platteville and led UW to the Final Four twice.
MADISON – Greg Gard chuckled before he could attempt to respond to the question:
How would you state your case for Bo Ryan to be voted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame?
“I mean, it’s a no-brainer,” the Wisconsin coach said. “You look at the numbers.”
Gard, who worked under Ryan for more than two decades – at UW-Platteville, UW-Milwaukee and finally at Wisconsin – probably can recite many of the numbers from memory.
“Platteville alone,” Gard continued, “and I was there for six of those (seasons).
“The further you get from it you realize those may never be duplicated. They were video game numbers.”
Tom Izzo of Michigan State among those pushing for Bo Ryan to join the Naismith Hall of Fame
Gard and other coaches, including Tom Izzo of Michigan State, have been quietly pushing for Ryan, 76, to be inducted.
“Tom obviously recognizes the validity of Bo being in,” Gard said. “And I know Tom has been a proponent and a voice to help with this, as have others.
“I think for those that really understand it and know the history and step back and really look at it, it’s a no-brainer.”
Ryan moved one step closer last week when he was named among the 14 finalists for the 2024 class.
“Yes, we have been very vocal,” Gard said. “Probably more than ever and consistently more than ever.
“I think I’ve been able to talk to a lot of people that have given me insight how to keep that at the forefront.”
Ryan’s résumé is in the hands of the North American Honors Committee. That committee includes 24 voting members and is composed of Hall of Famers, basketball executives and administrators, members of the media and other experts in the game of basketball.
A finalist must receive at least 18 votes to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
The class is to be announced April 6, during the Division I men’s Final Four in Arizona.
“We’ve got to make another push now,” Gard said. “I know he needs 18 votes, so we’ll continue to push that forward and hopefully by April 6 when they announce the inductees that he is one of them.”
Bo Ryan’s résumé boasts impressive numbers
In case anyone has forgotten the impressive résumé Ryan compiled in 31-plus college seasons, here are some snippets:
His overall record was 747-233, a winning percentage of .762.
His teams qualified for the national tournament – NAIA, NCAA Division III or NCAA Division I – in all but four seasons, twice at UW-Platteville and twice at UW-Milwaukee.
He led Platteville to Division III national titles in 1991, 1995, 1998 and 1999 and those teams finished a combined 119-5 (.960).
Platteville was the winningest NCAA men’s basketball program of the 1990s regardless of division with a record of 266-26 (.908).
Ryan guided UW to 14 NCAA berths in 14 seasons and reached the Final Four in his last two full seasons. UW never finished outside the top four of the Big Ten during that run.
“We can sit here because we’re biased and say it’s a no-brainer,” Gard said. “But when you step back and really look at the numbers and the consistency of it, there’s no doubt it’s Hall of Fame worthy.”
Gard and his players were in Iowa City preparing to face the Hawkeyes when the finalists for the 2024 class were announced.
Gard called Ryan to chat.
“He did not know,” Gard said. “So, he was a little speechless. Which was good. It’s rare you find him speechless.”
Will the next time come in April?
Wisconsin
Wisconsin Weekend: Pride bar crawl, Father’s Day deals, and more
MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee has no shortage of ways to celebrate this weekend, from a Pride bar crawl to Father’s Day deals around the city and Juneteenth celebrations.
Summerfest and Northcott Neighborhood House are hosting a Juneteenth celebration filled with music and culture at the Summerfest grounds.
Watch: Kidd O’Shea breaks down this weekend’s events:
Wisconsin Weekend in a Minute: June 19-21
The event kicks off right after the traditional Juneteenth Day Festival wraps up.
Pride Bar Crawl
The 9th annual Pride Bar Crawl kicks off Saturday at 4 p.m. at Walker’s Pint.
Tickets include drinks and access to exclusive specials at partner bars. Twenty percent of proceeds will benefit the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center.
The crawl wraps up with an after-party and drag show at La Cage Nightclub.
Father’s Day
On Sunday, The Motor Restaurant at the Harley-Davidson Museum is offering a free beer for dad when purchased with a meal, along with free admission to the museum. Reservations are highly encouraged.
Families can also take dad to the Milwaukee County Zoo, where all fathers receive free admission on Sunday.
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Wisconsin
These Wisconsin swing voters say Trump’s war in Iran wasn’t worth it
Vessels are anchored along the Strait of Hormuz.
Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images
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Amirhossein Khorgooei/ISNA/AFP via Getty Images
The war in Iran was a costly blunder, according to swing voters in the battleground state of Wisconsin.
NPR observed two online focus groups on Tuesday featuring voters who supported Joe Biden in 2020 and then Donald Trump in 2024.
President Trump had just announced a framework agreement to end the war, which he signed on Wednesday.
Yet among the focus groups’ 13 participants, no one said they thought the conflict with Iran was “worth it,” and nine said they felt that the U.S. is coming out of this conflict weaker than before.
Corey M., a 33-year-old independent voter, said he is concerned that the U.S. expended “so much financially and so much of our arsenal,” with little to show for it. (All participants agreed to be part of the focus groups on the condition that they be identified by their first name and last initial only.)
“We essentially got nothing out of it,” he said. “It’s hurt our economy and increased expenses for the everyday American, and it accomplished the square root of nothing.”
Focus groups are not scientifically significant like polling. But they provide insight into how Americans are thinking about what they see in the news.

These focus groups — made up of 10 self-described independents, two Democrats and one Republican — were conducted by messaging and market research firms Engagious and Sago as part of the Swing Voter Project. NPR is a partner on the project.
Rich Thau, president of Engagious, moderated the focus groups. He has been asking voters in key states about this conflict since March. And he said voters have been consistent.
“They were never on board,” Thau said. “Not the beginning. Not in the middle. And as we just learned, not at the end either, judging from what we heard from Wisconsin swing voters.”
Sam M., a 30-year-old independent, said from what he read about the deal, it wasn’t leaving the U.S. in a better position than before the war. In fact, he said he thought the Iran nuclear deal brokered by the Obama administration — which Trump backed out of — was a better deal for the United States.
Anger over high gas prices
For most voters, though, their biggest concern has remained the high gas prices that are a consequence of the war.
Tammy S., a 53-year-old independent voter, said Americans have been unfairly caught in the middle.
“I just don’t think the way that everybody else had to suffer through the tantrums of these two playing tug-of-war — I just don’t think that it was fair to the American people,” she said. “I don’t think that anybody was a real winner here.”

Several voters said they’ve felt squeezed by costs and as a result have given up something that had been a regular part of their life. They’ve cut vacations and eating out or are getting their hair done less often.
“I’ve given up all my extracurricular hobbies … paddleboarding, yoga,” said Jaylyn M., a 27-year-old who identifies as a Republican. “And then a lot of my subscriptions I’ve cut out, along with my daily coffee, which is minor, but all things that I’ve had to give up to make ends meet.”
“I had to raise all my deductibles on everything — my car insurance, my health insurance — to lower my premiums, so that I can continue to make it,” added Robyn T., a 63-year-old independent.
Trump owns the economic problems
The latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, out Thursday, finds that only a third of Americans approve of how Trump is handling the economy.
In the focus groups, nine of the 13 voters said they are more anxious about the economy than they were before Trump took office last year. And all but one voter said that “President Trump himself is responsible for those higher prices” because of the war.
“And 10 said he’s out of touch with their economic concerns,” Thau told NPR. “So for them, there’s a clear disconnect between how the president’s operating on the economy and what their needs are.”
And heading into what could be some tough midterm elections for Republicans, voters are really frustrated that Trump isn’t delivering a better economy by now.
“It seems to me, like, pick your issue, and things are not going well for him,” said Josh K., a 29-year-old independent voter. “I mean, we got this stupid war in Iran, and it turns out that we actually aren’t getting anything out of it. I mean, all we got was $4 gas. I mean, pick your issue — the economy, things are more expensive.”
Wisconsin
President of Wisconsin’s largest mosque released from ICE custody
A federal judge has ordered the release of the president of Wisconsin’s largest mosque, after finding that immigration officials probably detained him in retaliation against his public advocacy for Palestinian rights, suppressing his first amendment rights in the process.
The US district judge James Patrick Hanlon’s order on Thursday marked a sharp rebuke against Trump officials, including the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who had tried to paint Salah Sarsour as a national security threat.
“Salah Sarsour, who has lived in this country for more than three decades and served as a core pillar in his community without any issues, should never have been detained in the first place,” his legal team wrote in a statement. “While we continue to fight these baseless claims in court, today is about celebrating a family being reunited. It is also a sober reminder that, if the government can target Mr Sarsour, everyone’s free speech rights are at risk.”
Sarsour describes himself as a stateless Palestinian, according to the order. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that he is a Jordanian citizen. He has lived in the United States for more than three decades, becoming a legal permanent resident in 1998. Immigration officials approved Sarsour’s citizenship application decades ago, though he did not naturalize.
Sarsour has garnered public attention as a champion for Palestinian rights, and serves as a board member of an advocacy group called American Muslims for Palestine.
But Rubio personally signed off on a memo to the DHS last year describing Sarsour as deportable despite his green card, because “his actions undermine US foreign policy to combat antisemitism around the world”. The memo, cited in Hanlon’s order, accuses Sarsour’s group of being “found to have been involved in activities providing funds to Hamas”.
A group of plainclothes ICE officers from at least 10 unmarked vehicles swarmed Sarsour on 30 March of this year, arresting him and putting him in deportation proceedings. ICE ultimately detained him in Clay county jail in Indiana.
Sarsour lost 30lb while detained, the order says. His lawyers told the court that he was “at constant risk of developing serious complications from diabetes given that the medical staff only checks his blood-sugar levels once a month”. Tightly controlling diabetes typically requires multiple glucose checks daily.
Hanlon’s order says that homeland security officials and Rubio probably trampled on Sarsour’s first amendment right to free speech and appeared to have arrested him in retaliation for his Palestinian rights advocacy.
The order cited a New York Times story and the website for the Heritage Foundation, the conservative thinktank that dreamed up Project 2025,
The Heritage Foundation presented the White House with the idea to present prominent foreign-born Muslims and Palestinian rights leaders as terrorists in order to sue them, deport them or pressure employers to fire them, the order says, citing reporting from the Times and Heritage’s own website. Sarsour was probably among the targets of that campaign, the order says.
The federal government, through its lawyers, contended that Sarsour should be deported based on two convictions from more than three decades ago in Israel – one for throwing a molotov cocktail and the other for attempting to store weapons and ammunition.
Sarsour denies having committed those crimes.
But Hanlon viewed those crimes as a non-issue for justifying his incarceration, noting that the federal government knew about them since the 1990s and approved his legal permanent residency and his citizenship application anyway.
Sarsour’s speech on Palestinian rights “is core political speech and squarely within the scope of the First Amendment”, the order says. “Mr Sarsour has submitted evidence allowing a reasonable inference that his protected speech was ‘at least a motivating factor’ in Respondents’ decision to detain him.”
A spokesperson for homeland security described Sarsour as a “terrorist”, citing the convictions from his youth in Israel.
Government lawyers had argued that Sarsour did not have the same first amendment rights as US citizens. If he were released, they said, he should have to pay a $25,000 bond, wear an ankle monitor, check in routinely with ICE and remain confined to his house.
Instead, Hanlon ordered his release on personal recognizance, meaning that Sarsour does not have to pay a cash bond to compel him to show up in court again. The order, however, requires him to remain in the state of Wisconsin.
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