Courtney Banghart’s eyes lit up as she was asked about one of her favorite topics – her players.

She went through the full roster, describing their quirks and their personalities. And then she got to Alyssa Ustby.

“She’s a freak,” Banghart said of Ustby, “and it’s awesome.”

That’s the quintessential description of Carolina’s sophomore standout, the one who grew up battling with her three older brothers in driveway basketball at their home in Rochester, Minnesota, and now carries her own toaster and loaf of bread to Tar Heel NCAA Tournament games.

Unlike many of today’s Division I athletes, Ustby (it’s pronounced US-bee) wasn’t groomed from birth to be a basketball superstar. In fact, the family was surprised when she first participated in a YMCA basketball game that included girls and boys and scored 16 points in her first game.

So her parents, Todd and Lisa, realized she could play. They knew that in middle school games, when the score got out of hand, they sometimes had to tell her to stop stealing the ball from her opponent and taking it in for a layup. But they weren’t ingrained in the basketball world. And when their daughter came to them in seventh grade and said, “The coaches said I should play AAU basketball,” they had a very simple response:

“What’s AAU?”

It wasn’t long before they understood very well the details of travel basketball, and it wasn’t long before one of Ustby’s AAU coaches told them, “She’s going to be a Division I basketball player.”

Todd’s incredulous response: “Really?”

But that coach was exactly right. And although Ustby kept playing as many sports as she could all the way through high school – her softball coach once taught her to hit lefty in an afternoon so she’d be a couple steps closer to first base and could get even more hits, and she immediately looked like a natural – most of the recruiting calls were coming from basketball coaches.

One of those calls was from a talented young coach at Princeton, Courtney Banghart. She instantly connected with Ustby, two powerhouse females who loved to compete, but there was a problem: as part of the Ivy League, Princeton doesn’t offer athletic scholarships. With so many good basketball choices in the Minnesota area, it was going to be tough to go halfway across the country and also pay for the privilege of doing so.

But then Banghart took the job at Carolina, and the situation became obvious.

“Courtney is amazing,” Todd Ustby says. “She has confidence in her players and the players thrive because she has confidence in them. We visited a lot of other coaches and met a lot of personalities. But Courtney had a plan. Alyssa was part of that plan, and Courtney told us exactly what was going to happen, and that is what has happened. She’s an amazing coach and communicator.

“When we did our official visit at Carolina and saw the campus, saw the community, and talked to the coaches and saw the gym, Alyssa knew right then and there she wanted to be at Carolina.”

Before she departed for Chapel Hill, Ustby had to deal with the disappointment of the cancelation of a possible state championship season as a high school senior. But that’s also when she began to make the leap that has characterized her college career so far. Instead of sitting around and wallowing in her frustration, she channeled it into twice-daily workouts. The schedule was simple:

“I saw that Covid pause as a moment of separation,” she says. “I knew it was going to be really hard to get up and do my own workouts and stay disciplined during that time, and so I wanted to use that time to separate from everyone else. I got up at 5:30 and worked out in the garage. I’d finish with my workout, have four eggs, a protein shake and some milk. Around the time I was cleaning up the kitchen, my dad was getting up for work. That’s how bad I wanted it. My drive was so strong that it really wasn’t that tiresome for me.”

That was just the first of her twice-daily workouts. Ustby held herself accountable by tracking every session on a white board in the garage. The effort paid off a couple weeks after she arrived at Carolina, when Banghart told her, “You’re a lot more ready than we expected.”

The rest of the conference soon learned that Banghart was right. Ustby started 17 of the 24 games her freshman season, earning All-ACC Academic honors while also propelling the Tar Heels back to the NCAA Tournament.

That postseason trip to San Antonio to face Alabama is where the Ustby legend grew. Most players boarded the team plane with a bag stuffed with gear and shoes. Ustby had all of her clothes crammed into her backpack because her suitcase was loaded with a few other necessities.

“I just wanted to make sure I had everything I needed,” she says. “I brought a toaster, a loaf of bread, bananas, a smoothie machine, frozen fruit, yogurt, and some milk.”

This begs the question of exactly how the NCAA falls short in their toasting capabilities. “I was just being careful,” Ustby says with a grin. Nothing, even the NCAA Tournament, was going to interrupt her nutrition regimen.

This type of fanaticism is exactly why Banghart called her a “freak,” in the sense of the word that is said with admiration by coaches. As you would expect, as a sophomore, she’s near the team lead in minutes per game and has started every game for a Tar Heel squad that has elbowed its way into the national rankings.

The same way Roy Williams had Tyler Hansbrough, Banghart has Ustby. They simply look at the world in the same way, react the same way, soak in coaching the same way. In an era when women’s college coaches are regularly having to apologize for their behavior on the sideline, Banghart rarely goes much further than a well-timed eye roll. Likewise, Todd Ustby says he has never, ever seen his daughter complain about an officiating call or argue with a referee.

Several years ago, he asked her about it. “Two things, Dad,” she replied. “A referee is never going to change the call. And I don’t want to be on the bad side of a referee. So it’s not worth it.”

After all, Ustby is much too busy to waste time arguing with officials. She’s been playing piano since the third grade. She had a near-viral moment when her brother filmed her riding a ripstick (similar to a skateboard) while juggling three basketballs and making a layup. With in-person visits curtailed, she’s been pen pals with a patient at UNC Children’s Hospital.

Over a thousand miles from home, Ustby has found the perfect fit, and she’s intent on leaving the program better than she found it.

“I love being a Tar Heel because the environment is so healthy,” she says. “The relationships I’ve made with my classmates and my professors, I feel like I can grow in so many aspects of my life, not just athletically. Challenging myself in the classroom is a big part of my experience at Carolina. There are so many people willing to help you and encouraging you to ask questions. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.”