Posts tagged Alando Tucker at FanHouse

Dear Matt Watson,

I see your Bulls rookie hazing video and raise you one Suns team dinner with first-years forced to sing. Mine also has Grant Hill's birthday cake, and some priceless awkward conversation between Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion. It's a little long, but gives you some real insight into what a close-knit bunch this team is.

Sincerely,

Shoals

On a recent morning in State College, Pennsylvania, a college student was sitting at a computer doing that thing that college students are most likely to be doing when they're sitting at a computer: Examining his Facebook profile. Except this student was Wisconsin's Alando Tucker:

The senior forward has led the fourth-ranked Badgers to a 23-2 record and a tie for first place in the Big Ten, and had a game against Penn State in slightly more than nine hours. His main concern at 10:55 a.m., though, was taking care of some pressing business on Facebook.com. And the lobby was the only place in the hotel that had access to the Internet.

"I'm trying to remove my profile," Tucker said while hunting for that option with the mouse. "I've already taken it down once, but a friend told me he put it back online, and I really don't like to be on there."

The reason? "It's just gotten a little too chaotic."

I can see how the star athlete at a school with tens of thousands of students would get a little overwhelmed with Facebook requests. And that's just one of the many interesting nuggets unveiled in a great piece by Luke Winn of SI.com, who spent a day on the road with the Badgers. Read the whole thing for stories about Bo Ryan's college roommate, Kammron Taylor's magic tricks illusions, and how the Badgers did their best dog impressions in the visitors' locker room and explained, "We're doing it to mark our territory."

Kelvin Sampson deserves some coach of the year consideration for the job he's doing at Indiana. I'm already on the record as saying Indiana is a Top 16 team, and tonight the Hoosiers had their best game yet, beating Wisconsin 71-66 to end the Badgers' winning streak at 17.

Although Alando Tucker scored 23 points, Sampson had Indiana running a zone that gave Wisconsin fits in the second half. If Wisconsin has a weakness, it's that Tucker and Kammron Taylor are a two-man team. Taylor chipped in 15, but no one else contributed much offensively.

Thanks to the luck of the Big Ten schedule draw, Indiana only has to play the conference's two best teams, Wisconsin and Ohio State, once each. Those two games are behind the Hoosiers now, and even with a hiccup against Illinois, Indiana has just two losses and still has an outside chance at competing for the Big Ten regular season crown.

More likely, they'll finish third behind Wisconsin and Ohio State. But that's still plenty good enough to ensure that Indiana is a Tournament team.

Andy Katz says the race for Player of the Year in college hoops really comes down to two players, Wisconsin's Alando Tucker and Texas's Kevin Durant. I liked this detail:

Durant said a freshman should be able to win the national player of the year award, but he's not politicking for himself. He said if he had a vote, he would choose "that player from Wisconsin. He's playing great."

Even if he couldn't remember Tucker's name, that quote is yet another sign of Durant's maturity. I don't think the Naismith race is quite so clear-cut, though. I'd put Durant first and Tucker third, with Nick Fazekas second. In fact, I think it's great that we have a race at all, and the fact that so many names are in the mix (don't forget Aaron Brooks, Glen Davis, Mario Boggan, Dominic James and Jared Dudley) is part of what makes this a fun college basketball season. By this time last year, weren't you already sick of Adam Morrison and J.J. Redick?

Lots on tap today in Big Ten basketball so let's take a look at the more intriguing matchups (not that Delaware State vs. Michigan won't be thrilling):

• Indiana at Kentucky 12:00 EST - It's kind of incredible that neither of these two schools comes into this game a ranked team, but that doesn't make this game any less interesting. Both of the Hoosiers losses could be classified as "good" losses, as they lost to a very good Butler team, and narrowly lost to #10 Duke. Kentucky has lost to good teams as well (#5 UCLA, #11 Memphis, and #6 UNC) so it's altogether possible that both of these teams will end up being solid by the end of the season. D.J. White vs. Randolph Morris will be an interesting battle of big men, and that's the matchup to watch.
• #12 Wisconsin at #20 Marquette 2:00 EST - These two teams play a rivalry game every season, but it's been awhile since both teams entered the game as good as they are this season. This is only the third time in series history (the two teams have met 112 times) that both teams enter ranked. Wisconsin really should be able to beat a team that lost to North Dakota State a week ago, but you never really know with rivalry games. Marquette has quite a bit of size, so it'll be interesting to see if they can clamp down on Alando Tucker. If he has a big game this should be a Wisconsin win.
• BYU at #25 Michigan State 3:00 EST - BYU and Michigan State haven't met since 1986, and the Cougars actually have a 4-3 advantage in the all time series. BYU lost pretty badly in their only other game against a ranked opponent this season, 82-69 against UCLA. The Spartans defense has been fantastic this season, and it's tough to see BYU being able to handle it on the road.
• Cleveland State at #4 Ohio State 4:00 EST - This really isn't all that interesting of a game as a whole, but it's Greg Oden's second time on the court and trust me when I say that's worth watching.