Tyler Hansbrough holds numerous records and his notable achievements as one of the greatest to ever play any sport at Carolina are well known, but one that is rarely spoken of is he may be the only player who ever scared his head coach, Roy Williams.
The feisty Hall of Fame coach wasn’t afraid of Hansbrough, but Williams spent every waking and sleepless minute of his senior season worried about two things: what if he couldn’t figure out a way for Hansbrough to end his illustrious college career with a national championship, and by God, what if Hansbrough broke his leg while trying?
The pride of Poplar Bluff, Mo., had already done more in his first three seasons as a Tar Heel than most players could ever accomplish, and 99% would have already moved on to the NBA. Hansbrough was in the last class of players who could have declared for the NBA Draft straight out of high school, yet he chose to come to Chapel Hill and had earned first-team All-America honors in each of his first three seasons.
He was the unanimous National Player of the Year as a junior in 2008, already had an armful of scoring records, ACC titles and legendary on-and-off the court moments, but he was missing something: a national championship. He matriculated at UNC in the summer of 2005 with Bobby Frasor, Danny Green, Marcus Ginyard and Mike Copeland, and they hadn’t yet delivered the ultimate prize.
Williams, who at his own Naismith Hall of Fame induction in 2007, tearfully acknowledged his greatest regret in coaching was not finding a way for Jacque Vaughn, Jerod Haase, Raef LaFrentz and Scot Pollard to win the 1997 title while at Kansas, so he couldn’t bear to think of Hansbrough and his classmates falling similarly short of the finish line.
Williams also coached every day that season worried Hansbrough’s right leg might snap. On Halloween, his 6-9, 250-pound center was diagnosed with a stress reaction in his shin, basically a severe case of shin splints. Williams dealt with his own stress each day wondering if the amount of running and work he prescribed in practice, or the intensity with which Hansbrough would compete each game, would lead to a season- or even career-ending injury.
Thus, on the evening of April 6, 2009, when the Tar Heels dismantled Michigan State in Detroit in one of the most one-sided national championship games in recent memory, Williams not only was overjoyed at the outcome, he also let out a huge sigh of relief: his star center had made it through unscathed, he and his teammates had their most precious championship rings and secured a place in history as one of the most outstanding college basketball teams in the last quarter century. When Hansbrough checked out of the game with 1:03 to play and victory in hand, the first person to greet him with a hug and an ear-to-ear smile was his head coach.
On Wednesday evening, Hansbrough becomes the 14th Tar Heel enshrined in the National Collegiate Basketball of Fame, a list that is one of the sport’s most enduring legacies. There are good reasons Carolina is the only program to have played in national championship games in each of the last nine decades: coaches Ben Carnevale, Frank McGuire, Dean Smith, Larry Brown and Williams; and players Billy Cunningham, Larry Miller, Bob McAdoo, Charlie Scott, Phil Ford, James Worthy, Sam Perkins, Antawn Jamison and Hansbrough.
Arguably, of all the Hall of Famers, Hansbrough is Carolina’s most accomplished college basketball player. Considering national and ACC championships, total wins, honors, awards and records, he is the standard.
But don’t let anyone say he succeeded purely on hard work. He had numerous physical gifts, including great hands, upper and lower body strength to ward off defenders and rebounders (built by countless hours with strength coach and personal foil Jonas Sahratian), a motor that never quit and a smooth shooting stroke.
Fans of opposing teams point to his nearly 1,300 free throw attempts, but conveniently overlook he made more than 79% from the stripe. He shot 80.6 and 84.1% from the line his last two seasons and made at least 10 free throws a staggering 32 times over four seasons (amazingly, he shot 86% from the line in those 32 games).
He also was blessed with a laser focus on the task at hand, the willingness to, as Williams would often cite, put in the sweat to get better, and the determination to do whatever it took to win. No player, before or since, did more to prepare himself to excel at the highest level.
His postgame routine to recover from one exhausting effort and steel himself for the next game was unprecedented. It’s why he wasn’t a great post-game interview; not that he lacked insight to describe what had transpired, but 10, 30, heck, 60 minutes after a game he was still competing and preparing. He even played pickup games and the summer camp game as if he were playing in the national championship or Game 7 of an NBA playoff.
He actually once made Marvin Williams mad. Think about that for a second; Marvin Williams may hold the distinction of being the nicest Tar Heel anyone can remember (although fiercely competitive at the same time). Hansbrough played so hard in a summer camp game that Williams and others stalked off the court in disbelief.
Hansbrough did “scare” Roy Williams one other time, and no, it wasn’t the day the coach learned Hansbrough was among a group of students who jumped off the second-floor balcony of a frat house into a makeshift swimming pool to celebrate the last day of class (Williams was somewhat furious and bewildered that Frasor, who was rehabbing a knee injury, had also made the leap).
The Tar Heels were playing Notre Dame in the championship game of the 2008 Maui Classic. Hansbrough had sat out three of the season’s first four games for precautionary reasons due to the stress reaction in his leg. The Irish’s best player, Luke Harangody, was often compared to the Carolina star and Frasor, who loved to endlessly taunt and provoke his best friend, made those lofty comparisons well known to Hansbrough.
Hansbrough didn’t play in the Maui opener against Chaminade and was on the court for just 19 minutes in the semifinal vs. Oregon, so Williams did what he always did when a player’s availability for a game was in question – he watched him warmup and went to check on Hansbrough with about 12 minutes prior to tip.
“I’m playing!” roared the All-America when Williams cautiously approached as Hansbrough was on the floor stretching. The head coach turned around, looked at the scorer’s table and with a sheepish grin, said, “You heard it. The Big Fella says he’s playing.”
Hansbrough went 13 for 19 from the floor, scored 34 points in 30 minutes and led the Tar Heels to a 102-87 victory. He helped limit Harangody, the previous season’s Big East Player of the Year, to 13 points.
Memories of Hansbrough’s single-minded obsession on winning weren’t limited to the basketball court. Stories of his competitive nature and those of his teammates were common. If you thought the image of him sliding across the floor diving for a loose ball was something to behold, you would have loved to take a seat next to the ping pong table in the Tar Heel locker room. The intrasquad battles and verbal haymakers were legendary.
Once, the Princeton men’s tennis team was in town for a match and was taking a tour of the Smith Center. One of the Tigers challenged Hansbrough to a game of ping pong and what followed and the intensity with which he played left the Princeton team shaking their heads at what they had just witnessed.
Hansbrough’s exploits amazed his coaches and teammates, but what they most loved about him was he just wanted to win, and he didn’t care who got the credit or who got to take the shot at the end of the game. All he wanted to do was win.
When point guard Ty Lawson hit the winning shot at the buzzer to beat Florida State on Jan. 28, 2009, the first player to celebrate with Lawson was Hansbrough, despite the fact he scored only eight points that night in Tallahassee, snapping his 55-game streak in double figures, the second-longest in UNC history.
It’s why a team with the reigning National Player of the Year could play cohesively enough to win a national championship when another teammate (Lawson) could win ACC Player-of-the-Year honors and yet another (Wayne Ellington) could be the Most Outstanding Player in the Final Four.
Again, you can’t accomplish what Hansbrough did just because you give great effort and want to win as much or more than the other guys. It’s been 15 years since he scored 18 points against the Spartans in his final game as a Tar Heel, so let’s remember what he did accomplish:
• led Carolina to the 2009 NCAA championship and 2008 Final Four
• led Carolina to three regular-season ACC titles, two ACC Tournament championships and three No. 1 NCAA Tournament seeds
• became the only four-time first-team All-America and first-team all-conference honoree in ACC history
• the first four-time first-team All-America at any school in the country since 1947
• the first three-time first-team All-America in college basketball since 1985
• the 2008 National Player of the Year, ACC Player of the Year, ACC Male Athlete of the Year, ACC Tournament MVP and NCAA East Regional MVP
• the ACC’s all-time leading scorer with 2,872 points (breaking Phil Ford’s UNC record which had stood since 1978 and J.J. Redick’s ACC record)
• scored 2,452 points in just the Tar Heel victories, which were more points than Ford, whose UNC scoring record he broke, had scored in all his games at Carolina
• led UNC to a 120-22 record (50-14 in ACC regular-season games, 8-2 in the ACC Tournament and 14-3 in the NCAA Tournament)
• set the NCAA record for made free throws with 982, shattering the existing UNC and ACC records along the way
• became Carolina’s all-time leading scorer in NCAA Tournament games with 325 points, the fourth most all-time behind only Christian Laettner, Elvin Hayes and Danny Manning
• became one of four players (with Danny Green and Wake Forest’s Tim Duncan and Rusty LaRue) to go 4-0 at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium against Mike Krzyzewski-coached teams
• led Carolina to an 18-4 record against in-state ACC opponents Duke, NC State and Wake Forest
• averaged 20.2 points in his career, one of two ACC players (with NC State’s Rodney Monroe) to play four seasons and average 20 or more points
• scored in double figures 133 times in 142 games, breaking the ACC record previously held by fellow 2023 College Hall of Fame inductee Johnny Dawkins of Duke
• broke Sam Perkins’ Carolina record for rebounds (since eclipsed by Armando Bacot)
• became the first Tar Heel to earn first-team All-ACC Tournament honors three times and just the third to make three NCAA All-Regional teams
Whether it was his 40-point performance in a comeback win over Georgia Tech his freshman season, his three-pointer to clinch a win at Duke that same year, the bloody nose at the end of a home win over the Blue Devils his sophomore year, his emphatic dunk over UNC Asheville’s 7-foot-7 center Kenny George, a game-winning baseline jumper to eliminate Virginia Tech in the ACC Tournament in Charlotte, the Smith Center shot against Evansville in December 2008 to surpass Ford’s scoring mark or any of countless offensive rebounds and three-point plays throughout his remarkable career, Tyler Hansbrough will be forever remembered as one of the greatest players – and winners – in the history of college basketball.
