By Lee Strawther
The Sporting Tribune
The John R. Wooden Award will celebrate it’s 50th anniversary this season. Leading up to the award ceremony on April 10, 2026, The Sporting Tribune in partnership with the Wooden Award and the Los Angeles Athletic Club will highlight past winners of the Wooden Award and the Legends of Coaching Award.
Outside of a reliable point guard, there are two things that most successful college basketball teams posses, a dominant two-way big man and an enforcer. From 2005 to 2009 the University of North Carolina Tar Heels had both in 6-9 power forward/center Tyler Hansbrough.
Andrew Tyler Hansbrough was born on November 3, 1985 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri where he attended Poplar Bluff High School and led the Mules to back-to-back state championships.
Scoring more than 2,500 points in his prep career, he averaged 28 points and 7.3 rebounds as a senior and was named the Missouri Gatorade Player of the Year, as well as a McDonald’s and Parade All-American.
Not one to shy away from neither competition nor confrontation, Hansbrough often described his style of play in terms of toughness, effort and work ethic, embracing the physical aspect of the game with a seemingly never-ending motor. He regarded those attributes as keys to his success.
“I take it as a compliment,” he once said. “It’s definitely something that I do, but also sometimes I think some of my other skills get overlooked. I am a hard worker.”
Recruited by every major college basketball program imaginable, Hansbrough would go on to become a star under legendary head coach Roy Williams at North Carolina.
Nicknamed “Psycho T” for his wide-eyed intensity and edgy demeanor, Hansbrough became the only player in Atlantic Coast Conference history to earn First Team All-America honors as a freshman by The Sporting News and third-team All-America by the Associated Press, National Association of Basketball Coaches and Basketball Times. He was only the third ACC freshman to earn AP All-America honors, and was selected the National Freshman of the Year by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association, ESPN.com, The Sporting News, and Basketball Times.
A consensus first-team All-American as a sophomore (2006–07), Hansbrough was a unanimous first-team All-ACC selection for a second consecutive year and led the Tar Heels in scoring with 18.4 points per game.
As a junior, Hansbrough was named the consensus National Player of the Year, making him the 11th Tar Heel to earn the honor, and became the fourth player in ACC history to win National Player of the Year, ACC Player of the Year, ACC Tournament MVP and NCAA Regional MVP honors in the same season.
Hansbrough was the Tar Heels’ co-MVP with Ty Lawson his senior season (2008–09) after finishing second in the conference in scoring at 20.7 points per game, and sixth in rebounding, field goal percentage and free throw percentage. He scored 18 points in each of North Carolina’s Final Four wins over Villanova and Michigan State, helping the Tar Heels win the 2009 NCAA championship, while being named to the All-Final Four team.
Hansbrough became the first player in ACC history to earn first-team All-America and first-team All-ACC honors in each of his four college seasons.
He swept all of the major individual honors in men’s college basketball his final year, taking home Associated Press, USBWA, NABC and Sporting News honors, in addition to the much-heralded James Naismith, and John R. Wooden Awards.
“I developed a routine where if I didn’t get into the gym and shoot every day, it felt kind of awkward; it felt like I was letting myself down,” he would say of his work ethic. “I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
With his successes at the collegiate level behind him, Hansbrough was selected 13th overall by the Indiana Pacers in the 2009 NBA draft. He would miss the entire preseason and first four games of the regular season with a shin injury, however, and was limited to just 29 games his rookie year due to a host of injuries, in addition to his well-documented struggle with vertigo.
The next season, Hansbrough played in 70 games for the Pacers, starting in 29, while averaging 11 points and 5.3 rebounds per game. After the 2012-13 season he was picked up by the Toronto Raptors where he spent two years, followed by a one-year stint with the Charlotte Hornets.
Hansbrough would end his professional career overseas playing one season with the Guangzhou Long-Lions (2017-18), one with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls (2018-19), and one season with Sichuan Blue Whales (2019–20), all of the Chinese Basketball Association. A second stint with the Blue Whales was thwarted due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Currently Hansbrough is involved in the media through his own podcast and as an analyst on the ACC and Tar Heel Sports Networks, and is enjoying his newest endeavor, co-teaching a sports communication class at his college alma mater, helping students understand sports media, broadcasting, and athlete development,
When it comes to any advice he may have for up-and-coming players, Hansbrough says, “In basketball or in life is to earn everything. Don’t expect anyone to give you anything. Have a great work ethic and prepare to be great. When I was growing up, you worked harder and earned those achievements.”
Sound advice from someone who always competed till the final buzzer sounded.