No. 15: Tyler Hansbrough

Every offseason, we run historical ranking series focusing on North Carolina basketball and football.

The purpose each spring isn’t to make declarative statements, but to have fun offering a subjective look at the best teams and players ever at Carolina. This effort is to generate discourse, debate, and take UNC fans down memory lane.

This season, we are doing something a little different, combining football and basketball, as we offer our take on the Top 40 UNC football and basketball players of all time. The criteria is quite simple: The process includes playing careers with the Tar Heels and professionally, other relevant impacts they’ve had on their sports, coaching, and championships. We also gave a lean toward all UNC accomplishments.

So, this isn’t a UNC-only list, a pro-only list, or a straight up purely best ever list. Some Tar Heels on this list didn’t have great pro careers but were so good and historic at UNC, they simply had to make the cut. Some on this list weren’t stars at UNC, but had outstanding and/or highly distinguished pro careers, that it warranted their place among these 40 athletes.

We hope you enjoy the list and feel free to disagree, as we know many will.

We continue our countdown with:

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Hanbrough is the only ACC player ever named first-team All-ACC four times as well as first-team All-America four times. He was the 2008 National Player of the Year, 2008 ACC Player of the Year, 2008 NCAA East Region MVP, 2008 ACC Tournament MVP.

He’s the all-time leading scorer in ACC history with 2,872 points and the all-time leading rebounder in UNC history with 1,219. He averaged 20.2 points and 8.6 rebounds in 142 games for Carolina shooting 53.6 percent from the field. He still holds the NCAA career record for most free throws made with 982. He’s fourth all-time at UNC posting 47 career double-doubles, scored in double figures (133 times) more than anyone else in UNC history and he’s is 11th at UNC with 180 career steals and tied for the second most steals in a game with eight.

Hansbrough set the ACC record for career 20-point games and the ACC record for career double-figure games with 133. He helped Carolina to a 120-22 overall record, including 50-14 in ACC regular-season play, 8-2 in the ACC Tournament and 14-3 in the NCAA Tournament in leading the Heels to two Final Fours, including a national championship in 2009, and two ACC Tournament championships in 2007 and 2008. He also led UNC to three regular season ACC titles and led the Tar Heels to a 4-0 record at Duke’s Cameron Indoor Stadium. Hansbrough’s jersey No. 50 is retired.

Professionally, was drafted 13th overall in the 2009 NBA Draft by the Indiana Pacers and played seven seasons in the NBA, with his best year coming in his second campaign. He averaged 11 points and 5.2 rebounds that season.

For his career, Hansbrough scored 2,881 points (6.7 average) and grabbed 1,808 rebounds (4.2 average). Hansbrough earned more than $17 million in the NBA.

He also played several years in China, including the 2018 season in which he averaged 20.8 points and 9.9 rebounds this season.

He didn’t have a great pro career by any means, but he’s the most decorated basketball player as a Tar Heel in the program’s history, and that carries a lot of weight in these rankings.