Tyler Hansbrough can make more college-basketball history today when North Carolina starts play in the NCAA Tournament. And this achievement could be one of his most significant.
He needs three points to pass J.J. Redick, a former Duke guard, as the ACC's career scoring leader. Redick scored the last of his 2,769 points at the end of the 2006 season.
"I'm aware of it, but I'm just going to go out there and play my game,"
said Hansbrough, UNC's All-America center. "It'll be important to me, but I'm not sure about the most (important)."
"The reason it's so important to me is because it is the whole conference and with all the great players that have been here, for me to be the leading scorer is special to me."
Hansbrough is more concerned with UNC beating Radford and advancing to Saturday's second round and with getting injured point guard Ty Lawson back into the lineup.
UNC (28-4) is the regional's No. 1 seed. Radford (21-11) is No. 16. Tipoff will be at about 2:50 p.m., or 30 minutes after the end of the first game between LSU and Butler.
Hansbrough wants an NCAA Tournament championship after UNC fell short last season in the national semifinals against Kansas. As a senior, he knows that UNC's next loss will end his career.
"I kind of block it out,"
Hansbrough said. "I don't really thinkabout it. I'll try to think about what we can do as a team to win."
Hansbrough set UNC's career scoring record earlier this season, breaking Phil Ford's mark of 2,290 points that had stood for almost 31 seasons. He passed Sam Perkins as UNC's career rebounding leader in the ACC Tournament semifinals and now has 1,172 rebounds.
Coach Roy Williams of UNC said that being the ACC's career leading scorer is a notable accomplishment, but that the record won't alter his opinion of Hansbrough.
"Don't take this the wrong way, but it won't mean one more thing than if he fell three points short,"
Williams said. "It's a personal thing that he's one of the most unbelievable youngsters that I've been around."
"The fact that you can say that he's the leading scorer and leading rebounder in North Carolina history is enough for me. The fact that you can say that he played four years and did all the things he did and if he did not have those two records would be enough for me."
"When you have that and now you're saying, eMan, he's scored more points than anybody who's ever played in the ACC,' it just adds a 17th layer of icing."
The records have come during a senior season that has been at least slightly more difficult than Hansbrough expected. He had a setback in October, a stress reaction in his right leg, and missed three of the first four games. He's averaging 21.4 points and 8.2 rebounds but some critics have said he's not playing as well as he did last season, when he was the consensus national player of the year.
Hansbrough also can become the first player in ACC history to lead his team in scoring and rebounding for four consecutive seasons. He also already has one first-team All-America honor, and is the first ACC player to be named a first-team All-America four consecutive seasons.
Hansbrough is aware that more people have been more critical of his play this season.
"People have seen me play for so long, and sometimes people have expectations,"
Hansbrough said. "Fans go to hate me, and that's just part of the game. I'm used to it, and in a way I'm proud of it."
"No matter what, I'm still going to play my game. It doesn't really affect me. I don't really listen to anybody outside our program."
Hansbrough acknowledged that he and his teammates have played under more pressure this season because all five starters returned from a 36-3 team. He also said that the Tar Heels feel "a lot"
of pressure to win UNC's fifth NCAA Tournament title.
"People were talking about trying to win a championship before the season even started,"
he said. "We're not trying to overlook anybody. When you overlook somebody, that's when you get beat."
"We're just trying to take this one step at a time, and everybody else can have their own expectations about what this team needs to do or will do. We're going to stay within ourselves."
Hansbrough has no regrets about this season. His Senior Day, when UNC beat Duke 79-71, will be a lasting memory. One of his grandmothers and a younger brother, Ben, had never seen him play at the Smith Center before then.
He will get a degree, which he said is important to him, and graduate with the players and classmates he entered school with four years ago.
Today, when he takes the court, one thought will probably pop up a time or two -- the memory of last season's 84-66 loss to Kansas.
"You try to block it out, but you can't block something out like that,"
Hansbrough said. "It's how you ended your season last year. We didn't come out to play that game. We'll use that as fuel"
