Feb. 9, 2001

Just a sophomore, he has become a leader on this UWM men's basketball team. Eight times he has been the Panthers' leading scorer this year, and in every other aspect of the game - from defense to rebounding - his continued improvement is apparent.

Now Clay Tucker is ready to take this UWM team to another level.

"We're doing pretty well right now, but it could be better," Tucker said. "We're at the point now that we know what we need to do to be a consistent ballclub and a team that wants to win. We can see what it takes now to be a winning ballclub.

"Right now, we're just trying to make ourselves happy, as well as make the school happy."

Tucker wasn't sure what to think after the coach that recruited him from Lima, Ohio - Ric Cobb - was let go after Tucker's freshman year. In fact, Tucker didn't play that first year, sitting out as a redshirt, a decision that in the long run made him stick it out through the change to Bo Ryan.

"It was kind of hard to redshirt period, sitting out a year," Tucker said. He and Ronnie Jones both sat out the 1998-99 season. When Ryan was hired, "The first thing me and Ron thought was to transfer. But we didn't want to go somewhere else and sit out another year.

"We talked to Coach Ryan before we made our decisions. He got straight to the point. He was fair with us. He was honest with us. And he hasn't gone back on his word that he told us when he first came in.

"So, we're both happy that we decided to stay here."

By staying, Tucker also had to make a commitment to defense, something he learned from day one.

"That's the first thing he (Ryan) stressed," Tucker said. "He said he didn't care how many points you scored, he didn't care if you were a first team All-American.

"The first drill that we worked on when he came in was a defensive drill. We didn't touch a ball during the first individual practice. We did lane slides."

And, if that first practice didn't fully impart the message of defense, a future practice certainly cleared up any gray area.

"I remember one individual practice where he came in, and took us straight to the racquetball courts," Tucker said. "The first thing we were thinking was, `What are we doing on the racquetball courts? There are no hoops down here.'

"We did all defensive drills during the 45 minutes we were on the racquetball courts. It was one of the worst workouts I've been in since I've been here. That let us know right there that he wasn't lying about how important defense and hustle was to him."

Tucker then received another personal lesson about the importance of defense in coach Ryan's plan.

"Down in Florida, I recall I hit two three's, but then I got caught running chest-up into a screen, and he took me right out for that," Tucker said. "And he said to me, `You think because you come down and hit two three's you don't have to play any defense?' Then he subbed me back in, but just wanted to let me know it's still not the offensive end that he's worried about. It's the defensive end."

Tucker has also learned his teammates and coaches are looking for him to lead the way.

"I need to be a leader. I'm looked at as being a leader, both by the coaching staff and by the players. That's something that I have to accept."

And while he is learning to be that leader, he says his teammates have started to understand their roles as well.

"We now have found out what each player's role is on this basketball team," Tucker said. "That's something we were trying to find the last few weeks, or even the last month. Now that we've found those roles, we're going to be a better ballclub the second half of the season."

The next step, Tucker says, is to get past the agonizingly close losses the Panthers have suffered this season, and instead come out on the winning side in those contests.

"We're working on trying to finish games, and how to finish games. We should know how to finish games because we were in a lot of close games last year, and we've been in quite a few this year. I feel like we're getting there, but we're not quite there yet on how to finish games. If we can do that before the conference tournament, we might be dancing at the end of the year."

Despite some of the close losses - and the feeling the Panthers could have an even better record than they currently stand with - Tucker has noticed things have changed dramatically for UWM basketball.

"My first year here, people would always criticize the players and ask why our record was the way it was. You could just see some of the guys walking around with their heads down," Tucker said. "They weren't walking around with their heads up like they were proud to be on the basketball team.

"Now that we've got this program on the right track, it's good to be here. People when you are walking to class tell you, `good game last night' or `good luck tonight.' It's just things like that that make us a better program."

The fans have more than shown their appreciation by pouring into the Klotsche Center like never before.

"That's how it should be at the college level. You should be playing in front of a packed house every time you run out on the floor. That helps the team play a lot better, too.

"I can recall a couple of times my freshman year when I would run out on the court, there wouldn't be many people here and I could hear people whispering in the crowd - that's how bad it was. Attendance has grown tremendously even last year to this year, and I think it's going to grow even more next year."

Tucker has been consistently honored for his performance. He was an all-MCC second team pre-season selection, and during the year made the all-tournament team at the Golden Panther Thanksgiving Shootout while also twice being selected as the Coca-Cola/UWM Athlete of the Month.

And now, for the first time in a long time at UWM, reaching the NCAA Tournament is a reasonable and realistic goal.

"That I see in the near future, whether it's this year, next year, or the year after next," Tucker said. "This team has eight sophomores this year, and we're going to continue to grow closer to one another and keep feeding off one another for the next three years."

Panther fans can't wait.