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USBWA Ceremony:
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“Without any further ado, I want to congratulate Tyler for this wonderful award,” Robertson said during the breakfast ceremony at the Sunset Station. “And with what you’re doing right now, this award is not a priority and I understand that, because you’re trying to win a championship. But when you get a little older, you’ll think about this a lot more.”
The ACC Player of the Year led the league in scoring (22.8) and rebounding (10.3) in leading North Carolina to a school-record 36 wins, collecting the ACC Tournament’s Most Valuable Player and the NCAA Tournament East Region’s Most Outstanding Player awards along the way.
“This award means a lot to me,” Hansbrough said. “There’s a lot of good college players out there, and for you to pick me, I feel very honored. First, I’d like to say thank you to my mom and my dad. My parents have been a lot of help to me. I feel blessed to be at North Carolina. I feel like I have the greatest teammates and the greatest coaches in the world and I couldn’t ask for a better situation.”
Hansbrough and the USBWA have crossed paths before, as the organization tabbed the 6-foot-9 junior forward as its national freshman of the year in 2005-06. He is only the fourth Tar Heel to receive the USBWA player of the year award, following Carolina legends Phil Ford (1978), Michael Jordan (1984) and Antawn Jamison (1998).
“I’m the luckiest guy up here and I mean that in all sincerity…,” head coach Roy Williams said. “Tyler Hansbrough is one of the reasons that we all have dreams about being a coach.”
This is the 50th anniversary of the USBWA player of the year award that was first given to Oscar Robertson in 1959, and that would eventually take “The Big O’s” name in 1998.