Andrew Tyler Hansbrough was born in November 1985 and began using his middle name of Tyler in place of his first name of Andrew at a young age. As a youngster growing up in Poplar Bluff, Missouri (pop. 17,000) in the southeastern part of the state near the Arkansas border, Tyler showed tremendous basketball potential.
Long before Tyler was drafted by the Indiana Pacers in the first round (13th overall pick) of the 2009 NBA Draft and even before he set basketball records with the famed Carolina University Tar Heels basketball program. of the North (UNC), honed his game in his small southern Missouri hometown, where he was born and raised. As a star basketball player for the Poplar Bluff High School Mules, Tyler led his team to back-to-back state championships.
Despite the relatively small size of the city of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, the basketball program competes in the largest rankings in the state. This is largely because, despite the small size of the town of Poplar Bluff, with only one high school and students drawn from the surrounding area, there is still a sizable student body. As a junior and senior in high school, Tyler led his school to back-to-back state championships in Class 5 at Missouri.
The championships for the 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 seasons were played and won at the Hearnes Center in 2004 and Mizzou Arena in 2005 on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia, MO. The Hearnes Center opened in 1972 and served as the home court for the University of Missouri Tigers basketball teams until its closure in 2004. The new Mizzou arena replaced the Hearnes Center and opened in November 2004. Games High school championship basketball games in Missouri were played for years at the Hearnes Center and are now played at Mizzou Arena.
The state championship Tyler won in March 2005 was particularly notable because he led his underdog team to a championship game victory against Vashon High School. Vashon High School is a dominant basketball school from St. Louis, Missouri that has won 11 state championships in men’s basketball. When the Poplar Bluff Mulos, coached by Tyler Hansbrough, faced the Vashon High School Wolverines in early 2005 for the state championship, Vashon entered the game undefeated and as the number one team in the country.
For his high school basketball efforts, which included averaging over 28 points per game and over 13 rebounds per contest as a senior, Tyler was recognized as a two-time All-State First Team Basketball player. . The high school success that Hansbrough enjoyed provided him with the opportunity to choose to play for any college basketball program he wanted. The youngster scrutinized scholarship offers from storied programs like the University of Kentucky, the University of Kansas and Duke before finally deciding to play for coach Roy Williams at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
