Andrew Tyler Hansbrough was born in November 1985 and began using his middle name of Tyler instead of his first name of Andrew at a young age. As a young man who grew up in Poplar Bluff, Missouri (population 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 University of Carolina Tar Heels basketball program (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 from the surrounding area, there is still a sizeable student body. As a junior and senior in high school, Tyler led his school to consecutive Class 5 state championships in Missouri.
The 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 season championships were played and won at the Hearnes Center in 2004 and Mizzou Arena in 2005 on the campus of the University of Missouri 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 The high school state 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 victory in the championship game against Vashon High School. Vashon High School is a dominant basketball school in St. Louis, Missouri that has won 11 state championships in men’s basketball. When the Poplar Bluff Mulos, managed by Tyler Hansbrough, met 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 efforts in high school basketball, which included averaging over 28 points per game and over 13 rebounds per contest as a senior, Tyler was twice recognized as an all-state first-team basketball player. . The high school success Hansbrough enjoyed gave him the opportunity to choose to play for any college basketball program he wanted. The youngster looked at scholarship offers from storied programs like the University of Kentucky, the University of Kansas, and Duke before ultimately deciding to play for coach Roy Williams at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.