The season has not even begun for the UW men's basketball team and the honors are already rolling in. Senior forward and dark-horse John Wooden award contender Alando Tucker was named Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year Sunday and his head coach could not be more proud.
""It's quite an honor. He's earned it,"" Bo Ryan said at his press conference Monday. ""He has been through more over the years of the nagging little nicks that a guy can take. And to be able to come back into his final year and have that kind of honor bestowed on him, that's pretty exciting.""
Ryan also emphasized, as he has done concerning the hype surrounding the Badgers thus far, that there is a long season ahead for Tucker and Wisconsin, and preseason awards mean very little in the grand scheme of things.
""He knows that it says Alando Tucker of the University of Wisconsin after it,"" Ryan said. ""He also knows we have 30-some games to play and it's early.""
Tucker averaged 20 points and just over six rebounds per game in Big Ten contests last season, but finished second to graduated Ohio State forward Terence Dials for the conference's top individual honor.
‘Talkin' about practice'
Ryan, did his best Allen Iverson impression Monday, responding to a reporter's question by saying, ""Practice. You're talkin' about practice,"" and emphasized the need for his veteran players to help the younger ones during drills and scrimmages.
""I count on my upperclassmen to have the younger guys knowledgeable about what's going to happen. That always helps,"" Ryan said. ""And with a guy like Alando, he's as good a leader as we've ever had, so he's clued in the younger guys to some things.""
Tucker sat out of practice Monday with a sore right leg, while sophomore forward Joe Krabbenhoft also did not practice with a sore left leg. Both injuries were said not to be serious.
Preparing for a D-III opponent
The Badgers finally get back on the court Friday when they take on UW-Stout in their first exhibition game. Ryan stated that in playing Stout, a Division III opponent, the Badgers will be able to fine-tune their fundamentals.
""Their movement away from the ball, their quickness off the screens, they might not have the size of some of the teams that we're going to play, but what they do is they execute so well because they are teams,"" Ryan said of the less talented teams the Badgers will play and have played in past preseasons. ""So they have an offense in place. They have a defensive scheme, whether or not it's a one-three-one zone, a half-court trap, [or] man-to-man.""
He continued, ""Whatever they're doing, their drills are in sync where the players have worked off of one another for a lot longer period than those exhibition teams used to.""
The Blue Devils finished their season 22-7 last year, led by four returning players (sophomore guard Ryan Stangl, junior center Jacob Nonemacher, senior guard Terry Farmer and sophomore guard Adam Chandler) who finished with over 10 points per game.
Buckeye big man shock
Ohio State was named the preseason Big Ten favorite, but that was not the biggest shock concerning the Buckeyes and preseason award lists. Freshman center Greg Oden was named to the All-Big Ten team.
Ryan did not speak much to the surprise other than the fact that people have told the UW head coach Oden is talented.
""I really don't have any thoughts other than that people must think he's pretty good. And he's pretty good, because they kept asking me yesterday who was the best freshman you ever saw or had the most prolific impact,"" Ryan said, adding his pick was Michigan State's Magic Johnson back in 1978.
Ryan also wasn't too keen on the news he received from Buckeye head coach Thad Matta concerning Oden.
""Oden will be ready for Wisconsin,"" Ryan said. ""That's what Thad told me. He said, ‘I don't know when he's coming back, but he'll play against Wisconsin.' I said, ‘Thanks, Thad, you're a good man.'""
The other players listed on the preaseason All-Big Ten team were Indiana's junior forward D.J. White, Iowa's senior guarrd Adam Haluska, Penn State's junior guard Geary Claxton and Tucker.
