Wisconsin men’s basketball coach Bo Ryan has little worry about with his team’s slow start in the Big Ten. After the Badgers dropped their first conference games to Michigan and Illinois, Ryan issued a calm reply to concerns about his coaching and his team.
“I never answer those questions. I don’t know what they mean,” Ryan said. “Like I said last year, I must think differently than other people. You heard me say it last year. I’m not changing. We’re thinking about Minnesota; we’re thinking about what happened before, what happened after. This is what’s next, this is who we’re playing. We’re playing a good team. Hopefully, they think they’re coming in playing a good team. Let’s have at it.”
It is in this manner that Bo Ryan has guided his basketball team for a season and a half now. Ryan doesn’t carry any baggage from game to game but is a master at dissecting videotape and correcting his team’s mistakes.
“We’re just going to come in and look at it the same; just take care of the ball,” freshman forward Alando Tucker said. “We have to play our basketball, play team basketball, get the ball to the post, get a lot of post feeds, and pretty much our offense is run through post feeds. We just have to do what we’ve been doing.”
Tucker has come to shine in the Ryan system. Tucker’s determination and quick learning has made him a great value to his team this season, while he quietly makes a bid for freshmen of the year in the Big Ten.
“The reason [Tucker] is on the floor is because of the things that he has done in practice against 6-foot-9, 6-foot-10, 6-foot-11 guys,” Ryan said. “He gets some fouls on other people, he gets some tough buckets inside and I’ll take it from a guy 6-foot-2, 6-foot-5, seven feet tall, whatever. You know it’s what a player has to contribute that we’re looking for and it’s our responsibility to reward the guys that produce and Tuck’s produced. So I like what he’s doing.”
But Tucker now has to deal with the powerful big men of the Big Ten, not to mention the spirited enthusiasm of opposing schools’ student sections.
“The intensity level and the pressure — the fans out there on the court,” Tucker said explaining the difference in Big Ten play. “We had two road games to start it off [in the Big Ten], and it’s been everything I expected.”
While the distractions posed by fans may seem minimal, the challenges Tucker has met facing the big men of the Big Ten have been a bit daunting. Tucker totaled 12 points and seven rebounds in the Badgers 69-63 loss to Illinois, but struggled to get shots off, making just four of 10 attempts. On the defensive end, Tucker, at 6-foot-5, was given the worthy task of defending the much taller Illinois frontcourt, headlined by pre-season player of the year Brian Cook.
“He’s a great player and he’s very long,” Tucker said of Cook, who scored 31points against the Badgers. “He’s longer than he looks. He’s great with the ball. The way they’d just lob it up there and he makes the catch and just lays it in.”
With the limited contributions of center Dave Mader, Tucker and sophomore Mike Wilkinson will be left to defend the post against the big men of the Big Ten. But Tucker is a quick learner who buys into Ryan’s system, who takes things the same way his coach does: one game at a time.
“Those ‘bigs’ have a handful with [Tucker] in practice,” Ryan said. “I’m one of those real simple guys, you do it for me here or you don’t get to do it. He does it for me on the practice floor and he’s been doing it in the games. I like what he’s doing.”