Lucas: Setting The Standard

By Adam Lucas

Tyler Hansbrough was the biggest celebrity on the University of North Carolina campus for four years.

That's what happens when you are one of the best players in Tar Heel history from the moment you put on the jersey. From his first game (21 points against Gardner-Webb) to his last (18 points and seven rebounds in the national title win over Michigan State), Hansbrough was known in every arena, on every scouting report, in every basketball discussion everywhere in the United States of America.

Imagine the life you would have lived in Chapel Hill with that sort of fame.

Now consider that at 9:45 virtually every night, Tyler Hansbrough went to bed.

Fame didn't fit with his goals, which revolved solely around two things: getting better and winning.

"Tyler loved college," says Wes Miller, a former teammate who is now the head coach at the University of Cincinnati. "He was a loyal friend and a great teammate. But he was anything from a normal student-athlete. We all watched him make sacrifices every day that even the most committed guys weren't willing to make."

Hansbrough was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame on Wednesday evening. It's a well deserved honor, of course. He is Carolina's all-time leading scorer and second-leading rebounder, he won a national championship, his jersey is retired, and he was simply unguardable from game one through game 142 of his decorated college career.

Several of Hansbrough's college teammates, including Miller, Marcus Ginyard, Bobby Frasor and Dewey Burke, were in Chicago for the ceremony. All of them now have jobs and responsibilities that could have kept them elsewhere on a Wednesday night. But all of them also knew there was nowhere else they could be.

"He was the guy who didn't have to say one word to set the tone for everyone," Ginyard says. "We all felt better knowing he was with us. He was also very humble, which made it incredibly easy and natural to follow his lead."

How humble? Hansbrough outwardly cared about nothing other than winning. In 2008, he collected one of his many National Player of the Year awards while the Tar Heels were in San Antonio participating in the Final Four. Carolina lost in painful fashion to Kansas. Hansbrough didn't even bother to bring the trophy—a national player of the year trophy!—back with him. He passed it off to someone else and asked them to bring it by the Smith Center when they got a chance. No rush. And promptly forgot about it.

If it wasn't directly related to winning, he didn't care about it. And a trophy certainly wouldn't make him a better player. Therefore, it was expendable.

"I watched him go to bed at 9 p.m. when I was thinking about partying," former housemate Ginyard says. "I watched him keep shooting on the court after I had already showered and was on the way back to the dorm. I watched him get in extra lifts when I was exhausted. I watched him go 100 percent all the time. He held us accountable by doing all the right things."

Danny Green had planned to attend last night but recently became a father. The three-time NBA champion has played with some of the greatest players in the world. He is immensely qualified to recognize what made Hansbrough great.

"He brought it every day in every minute in every practice or game or anything that he did," Green says. "He was a teammate who you knew would hold himself and other people accountable."

That remained true long after Hansbrough's Tar Heel days were finished. A decade after his UNC career was over, his appearance at the Smith Center for summer pickup games consistently caused current players to grit their teeth. Some days, it was just difficult to summon the intensity to play at his level—even when he was ten years older than them.

They should have seen him in the days before he mellowed a little. Tyler Hansbrough would have been great surrounded by anyone. But there's at least a chance that one important reason why he became one of the greatest is because he was surrounded with these specific individuals. It was the perfect mix.

The perfect combination to win lots of games, of course. Frasor ran the team and Miller knocked down jumpers and Green made big plays on both ends and Ginyard defended all over the floor. Roy Williams was fond of pointing out how many of them had coaching connections in their families, and it showed on the court, where the Tar Heels were consistently in the right place at the right time.

They all made each other better basketball players. But they made each other better people, too, and that includes Hansbrough.

Remember, this is someone who was petrified when he flew into Chapel Hill for his official visit. When the team returned on a commercial flight from an early season trip to Southern Cal he wasn't completely certain how to navigate the security and check-in procedures.

Tyler Hansbrough with Roy Williams at Hansbrough's induction into College Basketball Hall of Fame 2023

Tyler Hansbrough with Roy Williams at Hansbrough's induction into College Basketball Hall of Fame 2023

He'd never paid much attention to it, because it had nothing to do with how to be great at basketball. Teammates chuckled, but they helped him, too. When he arrived in town from Poplar Bluff, there would have been no player in Carolina history less likely to play multiple seasons overseas than Tyler Hansbrough. He simply could not have done it. But after playing over 425 career NBA games, he went on to play three seasons—and make significant money—playing abroad.

At the same time he was helping them win lots of basketball games, his teammates were forcing him into being more comfortable off the court…largely by making him extremely uncomfortable. Frasor, especially, took sheer delight in exposing some of Hansbrough's quirks. But they slowly brought him out of his shell, and by the time he left Chapel Hill, he was a frat house-jumping, Franklin Street-loving, ping pong-dominating Carolina legend. As long as it happened before 10 p.m.

Oh—and he was also one of the very best Tar Heels to ever play the game. And now, a Hall of Famer, honored in the same class with Mike Krzyzewski, who owns exactly zero home wins against Hansbrough.

It's the perfect way for Hansbrough to become a Hall of Famer. Even measured against the very best, he—and the teammates who helped get him there—still find a way to have an edge.

Miller has spent 20 years in college basketball. He has played with, coached and coached against some of the best players in the game. But he still has only one player he judges others against.

"For me," Miller says, "Tyler is the standard of desire, commitment and sacrifice."

Tyler Hansbrough with fellow inductees at Hansbrough's induction into College Basketball Hall of Fame 2023

Tyler Hansbrough with fellow inductees at Hansbrough's induction into College Basketball Hall of Fame 2023

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