In a few months Alando Tucker will be a millionaire.

Tucker, a 6-6 guard/forward filled out to a chiseled 205 pounds, is a fifth-year senior at the University of Wisconsin projected to go fairly early in the first round of this June’s NBA draft, where he will cash out to a seven-figure deal annual deal. He is an All-American, the all-time scoring leader for the Badgers, and the reigning Big Ten Player of the Year. Under his stewardship, Wisconsin surged to the forefront of the national basketball scene this year and going into the NCAA tournament, the Badgers were in the short list of Teams that Could Win It All.

So why is Tucker backpedaling down the court at the Big Ten tournament at Chicago’s United Center after hitting a 3-pointer against Michigan State – his tongue wagging like a hound dog out of a Ford pick-up truck? Why is he cocking his arm like a King Tut hieroglyph after another 3-pointer? Why is he celebrating his good fortune so openly? Isn’t that poor sportsmanship?

"You look at all my games, I'm emotional," he said after the game. "It's the same thing if one of my teammates makes a play - I'm excited. It's just fun this whole atmosphere, March Madness; it's either win or go home."

Fun is not something equated with college basketball these days, as the sport has become so commercialized and corporate, and occasionally controversial, there is continued argument about the need to pay college athletes and whether or not they are really student-athletes at all. But if you want to see what’s good about college basketball check out Tucker, who led Wisconsin to the Big Ten tourney finals and a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament. He’s a guy who wasn’t about to let a little pressure ruin his good time. Tucker’s ability to play basketball at a high level while still maintaining his child-like sense of enjoyment earns him SCF’s Athlete of the Month award for March.

After scoring just 3 points in the first half of the tournament’s quarterfinal game against Michigan State, he hit his first field goal of the game with 12 ½ minutes left in the second half, a 3 to put the Badgers up 9. He left his arm extended as he backpedaled down the court. With the Badgers up 45-40 he nailed a 3 at the top of the corner and let out a primal scream on his trip back on defense. With just over 8 minutes to go, he hit another 3 and kept his tongue out as he backpedaled again back on defense. Later in the half, he hit his fourth 3 and jogged back on the sideline, laughing to himself at his good fortune.

In truth, Tucker’s mild histrionics were hardly belittling to the Spartans, rather seemingly more suited to pump himself up after a poor first half; he wasn’t showboating. After the game, in which he scored 18 points in the second half, he was alerted to the fact that he was 1 point from tying the all-time school scoring record, held by fellow Chicagoan Michael Finley. He would break it the next day.

“That’s a great feat,” he said. “A great accomplishment. It’s one of those things where the team has been so successful this year. It helped me out, confidence-wise, the way everyone has been playing. It’s one of those things that happened unselfishly.”

Tucker, like most Wisconsin players was a good, but not-great prospect coming out of Lockport High. After a redshirt year he began to grow as a player and now plays basketball as hard, and perhaps as well, as any player in the country, leading on both sides of the floor. And people have noticed.

“He does what, in this society, now no one wants to do, work at it, get better,” said Illinois coach Bruce Weber after Tucker knocked his team out of the Big Ten tournament.

Tucker has earned the right to have some fun.

Tucker scored 17 points in his final collegiate game, a tough 74-68 upset loss to UNLV in the second round of the Midwest Regional. He came to Wisconsin as under-recruited 18-year-old from Lockport, Ill, but he leaves a Badgers legend. Tucker, who scored a conference record 716 points this season, was just named a finalist for the Naismith Award given to college basketball’s player of the year, which will be given out on April 1.