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"It was incredible," said Gene, whose rubber-floored basement eventually was converted into a home gym for the boys. "He'd come down here, and he'd have the radio on, and he'd bounce the ball -- Bam! Bam! Bam! -- and he'd say, 'That's the band playing; I'm warming up here.'

"And it was always his dream to play in front of a real college band, for him to be warming up and the band really playing."

Gateway to greatness

Back then, it seemed unlikely that the likes of UNC coach Roy Williams, Kentucky's Tubby Smith or Duke's Mike Krzyzewski would feel compelled to visit a place that bills itself as "The Gateway to the Ozarks." Not only is the closest major airport a 2 1/2-hour drive away, golf and football were far and away the most popular sports around town until the Hansbrough boys came along.

When Tyler was 10, his dad took the three brothers to a high school basketball game. Only about 50 people were sprinkled around the 2,700-seat gym.

"Dad," one of the boys said, "we've got to move. No one cares about basketball here."

The father's response: "You keep working, and they will."

Tyler took those words to heart, and to the court, during summer camps and AAU ball. Footwork, rebounding, shooting, passing -- every time he felt someone was beating him at something, he adjusted his workout routine.

"Then two weeks later, people weren't beating him at it anymore," Gene said.

His brothers fed Tyler's work ethic and competitive instinct, as well.

Greg, now a junior at the University of Missouri and a marathon runner, was diagnosed with brain cancer at age 7 1/2. The surgery to remove the tumor rendered his left side partially paralyzed, but he still managed to play basketball at the high school level, catching, shooting and dribbling predominantly with his right hand.

"I think it made us realize how much a person can go through and how much a person can overcome, stuff like that," said Ben, Tyler's younger brother, who has signed a letter of intent to play point guard for Mississippi State.

And the competition among the brothers could be fierce.

"I remember here, we were playing in one of the local gyms, and I went around him and scored a layup on [Tyler]," Ben recalled. "About four seconds later, after the play -- boom! -- he hits me in the mouth, chips one of my teeth. I was like, 'What was that for?' He said, 'Don't score on me again.' "

Growth pattern

By his freshman year of high school, Tyler had shot up to a skinny 6-6. He earned a starting spot on the varsity several games into the season.

"I remember one time he came home when he was a freshman and he said, 'Mom, I don't fit in any of the desks because I'm too big; I can't find shoes because my feet are too big, I don't fit in anywhere,' " said his mother, Tami Wheat, a former Miss Missouri who began having to special order size 16s and make hours-long drives to St. Louis and Memphis to find Big & Tall stores.

Tyler always had been dedicated to his workouts; after he attended the prom with a senior date as a freshman, he was on the phone with his father, asking Gene to rebound for him at a local gym.

Then, the summer after his sophomore season, Hansbrough consulted a nutritionist and took his diet, and his body, to a whole new level.

Beginning with a 4:30 a.m. breakfast that consisted of six eggs, four pieces of toast with natural peanut butter, a bowl of oatmeal, a protein shake and an orange, Hansbrough ate six or seven times a day.

Workouts that included hours of weight training, shooting, tip drills, defensive slides and conditioning enabled him to gain 25 pounds of muscle and add inches to his vertical leap.

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