Hansbrough’s critics remain at arms’ length

Tyler Hansbrough, a leading Naismith Player of the Year candidate, is confronted with a series of charges that ignores his robust production.

He is either too soft or hard-nosed in his approach, one criticism contradicting the other. He is overly reliant on the exchanges that occur around the basket, which underlines his limitations. His 6-foot-9 list height is a stretch as well, possibly by as many as two inches. And he has short arms, basically two hands protruding from his shoulders.

So Hansbrough is essentially the Eddie Gaedel of college basketball and has the additional handicap of severely compromised arms.

Those who lurk on the NBA mock draft Web sites come up with all kinds of dark fantasies, some of them possibly accurate.

At least one of the contentions involving Hansbrough is misguided.

Hansbrough, a junior, always has insisted he would play all four years at North Carolina. And, as usual, he has not said one thing that would indicate he will be leaving Chapel Hill after this season.

The urge to find fault with Hansbrough is partly connected to the ascent of the Internet and those ever in a rush to expedite the news cycle.

They have had Hansbrough going to the NBA since his freshman season. All he has done since then is improve each season, confound his critics and put himself in player of the year contention.

There is really nothing to dislike about how he plays the game, if you can appreciate hard work, a rugged spirit and leave the NBA out of it until he either declares to enter the draft or completes his senior season.

This is college basketball, after all, and no one ever confuses it with the NBA.

And if you really must know about this or that player’s NBA chances, think of it in this fashion: Sixty NBA selections are made each June. Go ahead and discount each and every selection as becoming either an interchangeable part, a one-time All-Star type, a project or a 10-day contract vagabond, and you probably will be correct with 50 to 55 of the selections.

Hansbrough is neither the fastest nor quickest, which is part of his appeal. He gets it done on perseverance and grit. He seeks contact. Bruises are his badge of honor. There is nothing distinctly graceful about him, and he has relatively few moves around the basket, except straight ahead.

And yet his numbers are incredibly efficient, more so than Kansas State’s Michael Beasley, the latest flavor of the month.

Hansbrough is averaging 23.1 points and 10.5 rebounds in 31 games this season. His scoring average becomes even more impressive if you consider he attempts only 13.5 shots a game.

His scoring production is not only the product of his .543 shooting percentage. He gets to the free throw line, averaging 10 attempts there. So consistent is he in drawing contact that the UNC-Duke game Saturday night was the first time this season that he did not earn at least one free throw attempt in a contest.

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