FanHouse AlandoTucker

A few weeks back, the Phoenix Suns held their annual Suns and Stars charity benefit, and there was talk amongst the players afterwards that Goran Dragic stole the show with his rendition of the theme from "The Greatest American Hero."

They weren't lying. Goran was amazing, and so were a couple of other Suns' players. Lou Amundson performed "Ice Ice Baby" with Shaquille O'Neal and Alando Tucker as members of his on-stage posse, and Robin Lopez deftly worked the mic while singing the theme from "Cheers."

The mythical video of all three of these incredible performances, after the jump.

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?