Yet, since Ryan took over the Badgers in 2001, his teams have never finished lower than fourth in the Big Ten and have not missed the N.C.A.A. tournament. Ryan has a .735 winning percentage as the Badgers’ coach, including the best career Big Ten winning percentage of coaches with at least five years’ experience, and a .904 winning percentage at Madison’s Kohl Center.

Sustained excellence is not the norm for Wisconsin, whose past accomplishments included one national title (1941) and one other Final Four appearance (in 2000, when the Badgers were seeded eighth). And it is unexpected from a coach who, when he began, had spent a majority of his career at the Division III and high school levels.

But Ryan’s decades of dues-paying proved essential to his success in the spotlight. Hard-working and humble, Ryan seems like the star of the ultimate Midwestern morality tale. If only he were from the Midwest.

Channeling Naismith

Ryan’s style can best be described as old school. When Ryan met with his players after he was hired at Wisconsin, he instructed one to remove a baseball cap, according to Pat Richter, the athletic director then. Ryan once published a book called “Passing and Catching the Basketball: A Lost Art.” The post moves he teaches are named for long-retired players like Jack Sikma, Bernard King and Kevin McHale. He keeps an old fruit basket in his office in homage to basketball’s inventor, James Naismith, who hung up peach baskets in a Y.M.C.A. in Springfield, Mass.

He also tells corny jokes, including one involving the basket.

“He had them throwing a soccer ball into the basket,” Ryan said, referring to Naismith, “and when they went in — it rarely went in — they had a ladder near each basket, and they’d go up and take it out.”