University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: This Is Tyler Hansbrough
February 15, 2006 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 15, 2006
By Adam Lucas
This is Tyler Hansbrough.
This is the guy who had the greatest freshman performance ever Wednesday night in Carolina's 82-75 win over Georgia Tech.
Hold on a minute. There's that word again--"freshman." Can we stop using that word? It's really not fair to the other rookies in the league.
Try again: this is the guy who had one of the greatest Carolina performances ever Wednesday night in Carolina's 82-75 win over Georgia Tech.
Here's the thing: if you only see him on the court, you think he goes around hauling up trees by their roots, chewing nails and laughing when he snaps them between his incisors, and climbing up the face of the Bell Tower just for kicks.
But let's not let this get out of hand. Because this is also Tyler Hansbrough:
Remember that Montross-like buzz cut he had back before Christmas? Yeah, well here's why. It's Dec. 20 and the Tar Heels have some time to kill in Santa Monica, California. Roy Williams took the team out west early as a sort of Christmas treat, so all the sights had been seen, all the tourist traps visited. Hansbrough and Bobby Frasor needed a haircut. They asked the hotel concierge for a recommendation. His pick? A place called Bangs.
Sounds innocent enough, right? You'd probably consider getting your hair cut there.
But would you consider getting your hair cut there if you knew it was a combination bike shop, surf shop, and barber shop?
They do not have those in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Or Chapel Hill, for that matter. Rare is the occasion when someone in those particular towns needs a motorcycle helmet, surf wax, and a trim around the ears all in the same location.
So there sits Tyler Hansbrough, the probable national freshman of the year basketball player, getting his hair cut in Santa Monica by a combination biker/surfer/barber. As he cuts Hansbrough's hair, the barber is taking frequent swigs from a jar that contains, ah, not Diet Pepsi. At noon. On a weekday.
This kind of thing could only happen to Tyler Hansbrough.
But, see, this is also Tyler Hansbrough: already well over 30 points, he is absolutely wearing out the Yellow Jackets. He gets the ball in the post and Tech's Theodis Tarver decides this impudent freshman is not going to beat him this time. So with Hansbrough facing the basket, Tarver whacks him across the shoulder, intending to give a foul to stop the layup.
Tarver's fairly forceful slap has approximately the same impact as trying to stop one of Zeus's thunderbolts with a piece of notebook paper. In fact, it's never apparent if Hansbrough actually feels the contact. You half expect him to look down and bellow with laughter. Instead, he just bulls through and drops the ball in the hoop yet again.
This is Tyler Hansbrough.
We'll let Bobby Frasor tell this one. Because that's one of the things his teammates love to do--tell Tyler Hansbrough stories. Strength and conditioning coach Jonas Sahratian hung the "Psycho T" moniker on him because of his weight room exploits, and by the time the team went to the Bahamas over a month before practice officially began, people were already beginning to pull you aside and say, "I've got to tell you this one about Tyler."
So Frasor, his roommate, gets the honors this time.
"One night I was typing a paper. Tyler was asleep. All of a sudden he jumps straight out of bed and tells me he just had a nightmare about snakes. I just started laughing. Here's this guy, 6-9, 230 or 240, big tough guy, and he's having nightmares about snakes."
So now we know what scares him. Not double-teams (which Georgia Tech chose not to utilize, a strategy akin to Sam Houston unlocking the front door of the Alamo). Not triple-teams.
Snakes.
This is Tyler Hansbrough.
Be honest. Hansbrough gets the ball on the right wing with 14:20 left Wednesday night. He is beyond the 3-point line. Remember, be honest. This is what you thought:
Shoot it.
Why not? Sure, he'd made exactly one 3-pointer coming into the game. But on this night, at this moment, it seemed like he could do anything.
This is Tyler Hansbrough.
At Florida State, the students arrived early and heckled every move the Tar Heels made during warm-ups. They were particularly interested in walk-on Dewey Burke, alternately calling him "Ray" (for his resemblance to the character in the movie Jerry Maguire) and "Willow" (for his resemblance to the movie character played by Warwick Davis).
The Tar Heels get the win and are winging their way back toward Chapel Hill. On the team plane, Burke has the misfortune to be seated on the row in front of Hansbrough. Seemingly every minute, for the duration of the 90-minute flight, Hansbrough belts out "Wil-low!" in a high-pitched voice.
Takeoff: "Wil-low!"
Cruising altitude: "Wil-low!"
Landing: "Wil-low!"
Air travel isn't always funny for him, however. On the way back from Miami Sunday night, the captain informed the charter passengers that the plane might have to make an unscheduled stop due to a troublesome light in the cockpit. It was a minor issue--or as minor as it can be 30,000 feet above the ground.
Being college athletes, most players joked about it. Not Hansbrough. He is delightfully serious, which is one reason why his teammates love to tease him.
The 6-9 tough guy who will be all over your television screen on Thursday grabbed a stewardess and with a look of absolute fear said, "Is everything going to be OK?"
Good news, Tyler. It's going to be a lot better than just OK.
Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly and can be reached at alucas@tarheelmonthly.com. He is the coauthor of the official book of the 2005 championship season, Led By Their Dreams, and his book on Roy Williams's first season at Carolina, Going Home Again, is now available in bookstores. To subscribe to Tar Heel Monthly or learn more about Going Home Again, click here.
