As the Big Ten season winds down, the Badger men’s basketball team strives for their second consecutive Big Ten title. After losing forward Charlie Wills from last season, Bo Ryan looked to his incoming class of freshman to fill the vacancy left in the frontcourt. The skinny Alando Tucker, a 6-foot-5 guard/forward from Lockport, Ill. was asked to fit the bill.

Badger assistant coach Rob Jeter, who was an undersized forward for Bo Ryan at UW-Platteville in the early ’90s, worked with Tucker to overcome his size limitations. Tucker learned how to become a serviceable frontcourt player to provide solid defense on the oppositions’ post players while coming off the bench for the Badgers.

“There is a lot of different factors involved in playing good post-D and helping on hedges and rotations and things like that,” Ryan said. “[Tucker] might not be as tall, he might not be as thick as some of the guys that he matches up against, but we’re trying to use the advantages that he does have to counter that.”

The Badger coaching staff has utilized Tucker’s quickness, anticipation and incredible leaping ability to not only make him a serviceable reserve, but eventually a full-time starter for UW.

Tucker is third on the team in scoring and rebounding, averaging 12.3 and 5.8 boards per game. He leads the team with 70 offensive rebounds on the season, creating many second-chance points for the Badgers.

Last Saturday, Tucker was limited to just eight points and three rebounds against the imposing frontcourt of the Iowa Hawkeyes, a frontcourt that boasted four players over 6-foot-7, making it tough for Tucker to make a presence on the boards.

Despite Tucker’s lack of numbers on the stat sheet against Iowa, coach Ryan was happy with his player’s effort.

“Iowa is a physical team; they’ve got some bodies up front … that have given some other teams some trouble,” Ryan said. “He handled that pretty well; I’ve been pleased with how he has handled that.”

Badgers sitting just outside the rankings

After a week in which the Badger split their games at Penn State and Iowa, the Badgers remained just outside the two national polls. The Badgers sit as the third team closest to getting into both polls, theoretically giving them the No. 28 ranking in both polls.

But any lack of national respect the Badgers aren’t too concerned with. For Bo Ryan and company, the goal is solely focused on finding a way to take the Big Ten title.

“We’re just trying to maintain respect in the league,” Ryan said. “That’s all I’m worried about right now.”

With the parody in the Big Ten season, the conference has only one ranked team, Illinois, at No. 16 in the coaches’ poll and No. 18 in the AP. The lack of national respect for the Big Ten could hinder the number of NCAA tournament bids the Big Ten will receive in March.

“Some of the leagues do more things with how they publicize, which has been the case for a long time,” Ryan added. “And I think the Midwest is conservative that way. So the respect comes when you match up, I guess, at the end of the year.”

After Bo Ryan relegated Dave Mader to the bench against UNLV, the center’s playing time has gone down considerably. Redshirt freshman Andreas Helmigk stepped in front of Mader in the team’s depth chart and began to make small contributions in his reserve role.

Just as Helmigk was finding a little bit of consistency, the forward fell to illness for most of last week that limited his practice time and subsequent playing time.

“It’s that time of the year where people get different types of ailments — flu, colds, strep throat — any of that,” Ryan said. “I mean, there’s all kinds of things going around right now, but exactly what [Andreas had] I’m not sure.”