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31 Days to B1G Basketball: Wisconsin Coach Bo Ryan Raises Almost $700k In Fight Against Cancer

Bo Ryan's fourth annual Shooting Down Cancer event raised almost $700,000 after matching donations in the fight to defeat cancer.

By Bryan Steedman
Mary Langenfeld-USA TODAY Sports

Last week we mentioned Bo Ryan's annual Shooting Down Cancer Event, with Wisconsin student-athletes raising over $8,000. Yesterday the Wisconsin students got their chance to contribute and once again delivered for Bo Ryan and company.

The details behind the event are relatively straight forward. For every student that attended the event, Bo and Kelly Ryan would donate $1 to Coaches vs. Cancer / American Cancer Society. For every made free throw by the students attending, they'd donate an additional $10. As for every half-court shot that was made? A whopping $1,000. Besides Bo and Kelly's contributions to cancer research, each year they've also had a number of people matching donations to increase the overall money raised to fight cancer.

When everything was said and done, the Ryan's ended up donating $60,147 after factoring in the students that attended, successfully converted free throws and the 41 made half-court shots. Once factoring in matching donations by a number of donors, the event ended up raising $694,117 in total. This was a notable increase from last year when the event raised over $276,000, with the four-year event now raising $1,078,301 since it's inauguration.

"I'm numb. It's unbelievable how people stepped up to beat this doggone disease," said Ryan. "It's phenomenal the support and how people have rallied around this. Just from a simple idea of having students interact with the players...instead of a midnight madness we do this for the fight against cancer."

As mentioned above, the event saw 41 made half-court shots, with several Badgers themselves sinking from way beyond the three point line:

Even the students got in on the action from midcourt:

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