With all due respect, the recent crooning over Tyler Hansbrough, a shoo-in for 2008 ACC Player of the Year, raises several interesting questions: Can a player be simultaneously great and yet not very entertaining? Can you appreciate a player as a rare talent, admire his skills and determination, yet find the core strength of his game so workmanlike, so repetitious, it becomes as riveting to watch as someone pouring concrete?

ACC adherents will find it difficult to disagree with Dino Gaudio’s observation after watching Hansbrough net 29 points and a personally-modest 5 rebounds in North Carolina’s decisive victory over his Wake Forest squad. “He’s a terrific player,” Gaudio said on Sunday night. “I hope he’s the player of the year in the country. He deserves it.”

Hansbrough leads the ACC in scoring with 23.4 points per game. He leads the ACC in rebounding with 10.5 per game. He leads the ACC in free throws made and free throws attempted, leads in offensive rebounds and in defensive rebounds. He is second in field-goal accuracy among players who make five shots per game.

Hansbrough is among the most efficient and productive players around the basket, particularly offensively, the league has ever seen. He is without question the player for whom opponents prepare most avidly. He is the defining element in most games in which he appears. And he plays for a team emerging as what we expected all along - the ACC’s best.

The 6-9 forward/center is increasingly effective away from the basket, too. Several times against Wake, he smoothly sank jumpers from the area toward the top of the key, between foul line and 3-point arc. Face-up shooting was once lacking in his game; now the hard-working Hansbrough seems confident firing from a range that will soon make him a 3-point threat.

Ultimately, though, the area where the 250-pounder has muscled forth to make his mark is at the foul line. This has been a source of much anguish for opposing fans, who swear Hansbrough pounds on rivals, bulling his way hither and yon. But not according to the game officials, and they are the final arbiters.

Thus a Hansbrough offensive performance is a one-man parade to the foul line. A no-frills parade. Let others supply the fanfare, the trumpets. Oh, there is the occasional flourish - the periodic slam dunk or extended jumper, or one of his peculiar push shots, a form of basketball grunt. But mostly there are layups and rebounds, follow shots and free throws.

Lots and lots of free throws. More free throws all the time, a veritable bombardment of the most static, rote scoring act the game has to offer. (Assuming a reasonably good foul shooter is at the line - not someone breathtakingly erratic such as Wake’s Ish Smith or Virginia’s Ryan Pettinella.)

Hansbrough is a 77.4 percent career foul shooter. That is excellent proficiency , especially for a big man. Each year his accuracy has improved, in keeping with a work ethic that has pro scouts swooning in admiration - .739 as a freshman, .768 as a sophomore and .811 as a junior through 28 games.

Hansbrough got 31.9 percent of his points at the line as a freshman, 34.6 percent as a sophomore. This season the proportion is up to 36.7 percent.

There’s more.

Two years ago, Hansbrough went to the line 253 times in 31 games. That’s 8.2 trips per game. He made 187 of those foul shots. Last season Hansbrough went to the line 315 times in 38 games. That’s again 8.2 trips per game. He made 242 of those attempts.

This season Hansbrough has upped his free throw frequency. He’s visited the line 296 times in 28 games. That’s a 10.6-trip per game visitation rate. Even scarier, his average is 11.2 in 13 ACC outings, games in which opponents already are familiar with strategies to stop him.

Hansbrough, in taking advantage of his game's defining strength, is pouring out free throws at a record-setting pace. His 296 foul shots to date are the 11th-most ever in an ACC season, tying South Carolina’s Art Whisnant, who had the same number in 26 games in 1961. Whisnant converted only 199.

With at least five games remaining this season, Hansbrough projects to try another 53 free throws. That would put him at 349, fifth in ACC history for a single season. And it's quite likely the Tar Heels will last more than the minimum of one game in both the ACC and NCAA tournaments.

The only line-drivers who were more prolific than Hansbrough in the ACC’s first 54 years were Wake Forest’s Dickie Hemric (403 in 27 games in 1955) and Len Chappell (383 in 31 games in 1962), UNC’s Len Rosenbluth (376 in 32 games in 1957), and Virginia’s Buzz Wilkinson (366 in 28 games in ’55). All but Wilkinson were ACC player of the year the same season they lived at the line.

Two more free throws attempted at Boston College on March 1, and Hansbrough becomes the most frequent foul shooter in the ACC's last 46 years, surpassing the 297 amassed by Maryland’s Keith Booth in 1997.

As for made free throws, Hansbrough’s 242 last year ranked fifth all-time. The record is 302 converted by Hemric in 1955, followed by Rosenbluth’s 285 in 1957. Both totals clearly are within reach.

Nor has anyone noticed that Hansbrough is about to set a new conference record for trips to the foul line, and in only three varsity seasons. The leader, Wake’s Chappell, had 897 attempts in three seasons from 1960 through 1962. Hansbrough already has 864 since the 2006 season.

All very, very impressive. But kind of boring.