OPINION

By Mike DeCourcy

updated 10:55 p.m. ET Jan. 31, 2007

Mike DeCourcy

Two years before Alando Tucker enrolled at Wisconsin, the Badgers reached the Final Four. They started aggressively recruiting him not long afterward, and he had a vision. He would, in his words, "change the program."

He was not kidding then. He is not kidding now. And, seriously, Tucker did what he came to do. "Wisconsin was still considered a football school," he says. "Even though we made the Final Four, the basketball program wasn't highly respected."

Then a program viewed as dependent on a gimmick slowdown system that didn't excite young players or fringe fans, Wisconsin now receives enough votes each week to rank among the top five teams in the Associated Press poll. This accomplishment means far, far less than playing during the final weekend of the NCAA Tournament but is, for all but the historically elite programs, more difficult to achieve.

See, Tucker assesses what is good and then considers how to make it better — how, if possible, to make it best. If he did not approach the sport in this manner, we wouldn't be talking about him today. If good enough were good enough, he'd simply be another fine player on another contending team. He is not, though. He is a special player. The Badgers are a special team. They grew toward this together, and together they could reach the game's pinnacle. That was the plan all along, and he has taken the final steps in that direction.

He is healthy at last
A 6-6 small forward from Lockport, Ill., Tucker has endured more injuries in his five seasons at Wisconsin than a crash-test dummy. He missed all but a few games of 2003-04 with a broken foot. He played with a toe injury the next year. He broke his nose a few games into last season and struggled to breathe during every game, a problem that ultimately required surgery to fix. He also had offseason surgery to clean up some knee damage.

So, this is the second season he has played without significant limitations — and given that the first was his freshman year, when he was limited by being a freshman, maybe it's actually the first. Coach Bo Ryan says the nasal surgery has turned Tucker into "a different guy. I couldn't believe how much that must have affected him."

Tucker's newfound stamina helped him dominate when Wisconsin thundered through a December road victory at Marquette. As the talented Golden Eagles attempted a comeback, Tucker kept wrecking defenders with hard drives and wound up with 28 points. He followed that with a 32-point destruction of Pittsburgh and since has settled into providing whatever the Badgers need to win.

He will take what you give him and then take more
The book on Tucker used to say he would drive to the right nearly every time and that he would attempt to post up smaller defenders and attack bigger guys off the dribble.

The book on him now asks: What are we going to do?

He can post up bigger defenders and, most important, drive past smaller defenders such as Pitt's Antonio Graves and Marquette's Jerel McNeal. Despite a late-January slump from long range, Tucker's shooting ability commands opponents' respect. He is expert at pulling up and shooting midrange jumpers after several hard, fast dribbles. Tucker may not have the same midrange touch as Detroit Pistons star Richard Hamilton, but he moves more quickly and jumps higher.

"One thing we really admire about him is how dangerous he is from the triple-threat position," says a Big Ten assistant who has scouted the Badgers. "We used to give him jump shots. We can't do that anymore. Whenever the game is on the line, he steps up."

He will wait you out
Because of the foot injury, Tucker is a rare breed of college player: a great fifth-year senior. The last guy to win the Oscar Robertson Trophy in his fifth season was UCLA's Ed O'Bannon in 1995. That happens to be one of only three times in the past 15 years the winner of that trophy earned an NCAA championship ring in the same year.

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