Wisconsin men’s basketball: Alando Tucker situation is best defined as a head scratcher (UPDATED WITH STATEMENT)

What a weird situation this is. I mean Wisconsin men’s basketball has been a saga playing out like a Game of Thrones script for the past two years, but this is some season finale type shit. After a year of basketball that didn’t meet expectations, it seemed there was more going on behind the scenes than what we knew. That was confirmed when a tape of players voicing their displeasures about Greg Gard was leaked to the Wisconsin State Journal.

After that tape was released the question quickly became who put it out. It was clear the players did not know they were being recorded, so who would, and why? Well those questions seemed to have been answered after Jeff Portykus of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel dropped the bombshell Alando Tucker news. I highly recommend, if you can, to subscribe and read the article Jeff put out. It’s an excellent piece of work.

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Essentially, Alando Tucker attempted a coup to take over the Wisconsin basketball program. According to reports, he went as far as presenting his plan to take over as head coach to former Athletic Director Barry Alvarez. The one thing I take from that is that Tucker clearly has more confidence in himself than the average human does. I mean, to go to one of the most accomplished figures in college sports history and present this idea is an insane amount of confidence. I mean that takes some brass you know whats.

I can understand if the job was empty and you want to make your case. Sure, he was a former player and one of the all-time greats at Wisconsin, but that does not just automatically translate to X’s and O’s. The thing is though; he was not just shooting his shot to fill an empty role. He was trying to take a job from another man with wayyyyy more qualifications right out from under him.

As the great Omar Little says in HBO’s The Wire, “if you come at the king, you best not miss.”

Well, Tucker missed. Big time. From the article, it sounds like Tucker had a role with the UW staff as long as he wanted when he joined on in place of Howard Moore. Who knows, maybe he could have proved himself as an assistant and worked his way up. That has all fallen away, and I would imagine his coaching career as a whole has gone with it.

I can’t imagine the name carries as much weight anywhere else, and it’s clear a whole lot of trust has been broken here. Now you just have to hope some of the issues have been worked out, and the rest of the staff can begin to pick up the pieces after two drama-filled years.

8/4/2021 Update

Shortly after the piece above was published Alando Tucker released a statement denying all allegations stating that they were “mistaken assumptions and misguided opinions.” You can read his full statement in the tweet below.