University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Hansbrough Mellows As Sophomore...Maybe
November 9, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Nov. 9, 2006
This week wraps up TarHeelBlue.com's series of features on returning Carolina players. If you missed one, you can always check the news archives basketball preview issue now. It's packed with features you won't read anywhere else.
By Adam Lucas
Maybe Atlas doesn't really hold the world on his back. Maybe Paul Bunyan's footsteps didn't really create the Great Lakes. And maybe Hercules didn't really slay the hydra.
But it's absolutely indisputable that Tyler Hansbrough spent part of his summer pushing a sports utility vehicle around a parking lot.
It's true, even though it sounds like something straight out of a mythology textbook. After just one season, of course, Hansbrough is already a semi-cult like figure in Chapel Hill. In one year at Carolina, he qualified to have his jersey honored, set the Smith Center scoring record, and set the all-time ACC freshman scoring record. He's the rare player whose freshman season didn't need embellishment; just a simple statement of the facts is gaudy enough.
So here are the facts: on several afternoons this summer, Hansbrough spent his time pushing strength coach Jonas Sahratian's SUV around the Smith Center parking lot.
Hansbrough, whose one-of-a-kind Poplar Bluff, Missouri, outlook has endeared him to his teammates at the same time it's made him a popular target of their jokes, was predictably nonplussed about his new strength and conditioning regimen.
"If you can tell somebody you've pushed a car around, I guess that's a pretty big thing," he says. "Not everybody can get behind a car and push it."
So, Tyler, were you apprehensive at all about pushing a car?
His eyes widen.
"I was excited," he says. "It's not every day you get to push a car around."
The punch line is that he's completely serious. And that's why he is Tyler Hansbrough.
Last year, that meant he shouldered a significant portion of the offensive burden for the Tar Heels. This year, a truckload of help has arrived. He's likely to be joined in the starting lineup--and in the paint--by freshman Brandan Wright. Fellow rookies Deon Thompson and Alex Stepheson will also provide post relief.
That means Hansbrough is less likely to see the double- and triple-teams that had become commonplace by the end of his first season in Chapel Hill. By the NCAA Tournament, opponents had essentially decided to employ the same strategy Eric Montross endured throughout much of his Carolina career: foul him all the time and gamble that officials can't call everything. He finished just 5-of-13 against George Mason in the NCAA second round and somehow failed to make a trip to the free throw line for the first time during a freshman season in which he averaged over 8 free throw attempts per game.
"I got beat up on the court in high school a lot, so I was used to it," he says. "It's a physical and mental challenge. It's physical because you might get knocked down and get a bruise but you keep playing. And it's mental because there are times you want to explode and get mad, but you can't because that hurts the team."
Those explosions have become commodities among his teammates, traded like the latest Topps baseball cards. Did you hear the one about Tyler after the ping-pong game? The one about Tyler after he lost in a pickup game?
That's why the most shocking revelation to come out of the preseason doesn't concern anything that has happened on the court. Instead, it's this gem from Wes Miller: "Tyler has loosened up a little bit over the summer. He's finally able to talk to people outside our locker room. Maybe getting out of `the Bluff' for a year has relaxed him."
Tyler Hansbrough, mellow guy? This can't be true.
"Last year he was quiet and shy," Danny Green says. "I think people might have thought there was something wrong with him. This year he's loosened up and he's talking to people more."
Opponents certainly thought there was something wrong with him: he kept dunking on their heads. Should we now expect those dunks to be punctuated with a cheerful smile and a pat on the back?
"I think it's true that I've mellowed," Hansbrough said. "Last year I was pretty uptight. This year I know what to expect and I know everyone on the team, so everything is good."
Somehow, it's a little disconcerting to imagine a Hansbrough who isn't uptight. It's like Bunyan without his big blue ox. But as he continues to talk--about his offseason, about his newly improved midrange jump shot, about his efforts to improve his passing so he can better handle defensive attention--he allows a glimpse that affirms the same old Hansbrough is still prepared for an even better sophomore year.
He is talking about the fan attention that comes with being a Carolina basketball player, about the unusual requests he has received and the places he has been recognized. This is what he says:
"I was eating somewhere recently and a guy came up to me and said this year he was going to wear my jersey and a Jason mask to all the home games. You know, the guy from Friday the 13th.
"I really liked that."
Somehow, that seems right. He should like people paying homage to him with a Jason mask. You check just to make sure he's not kidding.
Hansbrough does not smile. Not even a little bit.
Adam Lucas's third book on Carolina basketball, The Best Game Ever, chronicles the 1957 national championship season and is available now. His previous books include Going Home Again, focusing on Roy Williams's return to Carolina, and Led By Their Dreams, a collaboration with Steve Kirschner and Matt Bowers on the 2005 championship team.
