By R.L. Bynum
CHAPEL HILL — Alyssa Ustby’s conversation with her dad after committing to North Carolina is hard to imagine for a star who has been integral to the program’s resurgence.
Todd Ustby, 61, told her that he and her mom, Lisa, planned to build a second house in the Triangle to avoid frequent trips from their Rochester, Minn., home during her college career and be closer to her.
His daughter’s first reaction wasn’t positive. Not only would her parents “follow” her to college, but worst-case scenarios worried her.
“I was like, ‘oh my gosh, dad, don’t do that,’ ” she remembers telling him. “ ‘For one, what if it doesn’t go well? What if I never play, and I just don’t contribute a lot to my team, and it’s just not a place for me, and I have to transfer? I was already thinking that way because I was nervous about coming to college, and my dad’s like, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, everything’s gonna be okay.’ ”
Father knows best, as they say, and he signed the contract to begin building a house in a development off Garrett Road in Durham in February of her senior season at Lourdes High School.
They moved into the house on Sept. 25, 2020, her freshman year at Carolina, although getting furniture there during a pandemic was a hassle.
“We’re like, ‘Yeah, you’ll do fine. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be good.’ We believed in her,” said Todd Ustby, second from left in the top photo, with wife Lisa next to him. “We’d figured she’d do fine. And she’s proved herself; she’s always proven herself. So, we’re like, ‘Yeah, you’ll do fine. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be good.’ ”
A senior who can opt to play a fifth season, she’s been much more than good, which is why Ustby is on the Cheryl Miller Award watch list (for the nation’s best small forward) for a third consecutive season.
An All-ACC first-team pick last season, the 6–1 Ustby affects the game in many ways with her versatility, whether it’s good defense, passing, mixing it up with physical play under the boards against taller players or weaving through traffic on drives to the basket.
She leads the team in rebounding (8.8 per game), assists (3.3) and steals (2.0; tied with Deja Kelly), is second in scoring (12.3) and blocks (1.3) and has 26 career double-doubles. Ustby is the only player in the country shooting at least 45% from the floor, averaging at least 12 points, 8.5 rebounds, three assists and two steals per game.
“I quickly learned that the impact my parents have had on my life is huge,” said Alyssa Ustby, whom her family and teammates call Lys. “And I will thank them over and over for all the stuff that they’ve done for me. So, I appreciate it so much that they’re so close and took that risk.”
Instead of living 1,128 miles from her Chapel Hill apartment, her parents are only five miles and a 10-minute drive away.
“It means everything to have my family so close to me while I’m here out at college, just because I get to see them all the time in the stands, and that’s something I’ll never take for granted,” she said. “Even away games, my family will travel to them, and I’m just so blessed. And I’m grateful to have such a supportive system in my family.”
When the Tar Heels played three games late last month in Estero, Fla., at the Gulf Coast Showcase, 22 members of her extended family were at the tournament. At home games, she said that some of the other players who don’t have parents there talk to and get support from her parents.
“She has her own space,” Todd Ustby said. “We’re just here for support, watch the games and do stuff. We still do our daily stuff, so it works out fine. We’re not over there that much. She still has space because she’s busy.”
Alyssa Ustby admits that she initially was uncomfortable with the idea of her parents being so close.
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is so embarrassing. It’s like my parents are following me to college,’ ” Ustby said. “But, it’s really been the best thing ever for me. I call my mom, like, ‘Mom, I have laundry. Could you help me, and I’ll go drop off my laundry to the house before I go to practice and then I’ll pick it up on my way back?’ ”
Ustby, who made the Dean’s List in Fall 2022, has a washer and dryer in her apartment. But she also has a busy schedule between classes, practices, lifting sessions and games.
“I get to go over plenty of nights for dinner and just hang out with my family,” she said. “That’s something that keeps me really grounded, especially going through just the natural ups and downs of a basketball season. It’s good to have family to lean back on.”
The Ustbys are the only family of a UNC women’s basketball player with a second home in the Triangle. It would have never happened if not for a couple of factors.
Since the start of the pandemic, Todd Ustby has been able to do his job as a wealth manager 100% remotely, meaning he could do anywhere. It hasn’t been as easy for Lisa Ustby, a real estate agent in Rochester.
They wouldn’t have built the house in North Carolina if Alyssa had younger siblings, but her three brothers are all older — Mark (23 years old; far left in top photo), Matt (24; second from the right) and James (26; far right).
“We would have never been able to do this if we had somebody younger than Alyssa because it would be too hard,” Todd Ustby said. “We would want to be there for those people.”
The Ustbys traveled with Alyssa while she played AAU ball for four years and were tired of going from one hotel to another.
“I was not going to stay in hotels at all,” said Todd Ustby, who only has to do that for road games. “And then when I talked to somebody else about their kids going to college and playing Division I sports, they all said the same thing: If they could do it all over again, they would have a house there.”
One of those was Doug Koenen, the dad of a former Carolina player, Taylor Koenen, who, like Alyssa Ustby, wore No. 1 and is from Minnesota. Koenen’s parents spent her whole career traveling back and forth from their home in Shakopee, just outside Minneapolis.
The Ustbys return to Rochester during the summer and the holiday season, but they are North Carolinians for most of the year.
“We like the area,” he said. “We like the weather; we’re tired of the snow. We don’t like waking up to zero degrees, six inches of snow and all ice. You can’t do much outside. You can’t go outside and walk and do stuff. Here, you can. It’s so much nicer. You never know when you’re going to get ice and snow, and it’s like solid ice for four months.”
Before the Ustbys’ official visit to UNC, they’d only been to North Carolina once, for a Raleigh AAU tournament in 2018. But, like many AAU trips, they didn’t see much more than the tournament venue, the hotel and the airport.
Todd Ustby said that Coach Courtney Banghart and the culture Alyssa saw with the program convinced her to play far away from home.
“She had a really good feeling about being here,” he said. “Courtney sold her on it, and then the atmosphere and the university, she was sold on it. She looked at a lot of other colleges, but she liked Chapel Hill.”
Read about the humble beginnings of the Carolina women’s basketball program, from coaches driving teams to games to playing and practicing in a dangerous gym, the program has come a long way. Learn interesting stories about the program in this Tar Heel Tribune story.
Ustby inexplicably didn’t crack ESPN’s top 100 recruiting list in high school. But Banghart liked what she saw in the three-time all-state selection. Alyssa Ustby’s initial reluctance to embrace the plan for a second house was mostly about lacking confidence, which came in quick order during her freshman season.
Todd Ustby said Banghart played a big part in building his daughter’s confidence.
“Courtney didn’t promise her anything,” he said. “She said you have got to work hard and prove yourself. She had a good game in Miami, came in off the bench in Miami had a great game and they’re like, ‘well, wow, you did pretty well.’ “
Ustby collected 17 points, eight rebounds, four steals and three assists in a 67–63 loss to the Hurricanes on Dec. 14, 2020, in her seventh college game, providing a glimpse of the versatility to come. That was the last time she came off the bench for Carolina.
With four bedrooms and three bathrooms, family members coming down to see Alyssa Ustby play don’t have to stay in hotels. Matt Ustby, a University of Minnesota graduate, lives in Minneapolis, and Mark Ustby, an Iowa State graduate, lives in Rochester.
The original plan was to sell the house after her college career ends, which would likely mean making a lot of money considering what the housing market is now compared to 2000.
When James Ustby, a graduate of St. Thomas University in St. Paul, Minn., moved to the area, it changed the Ustbys’ thinking. James moved to North Carolina with his girlfriend, Catherine Cunningham, a neonatal physical therapist at UNC Children’s Hospital.
Todd Ustby’s biggest surprise is that most houses in North Carolina just have crawl spaces instead of basements, unlike houses in Minnesota. He notes that many people leave their cars in their driveways to store stuff in their garages that could go in basements.
The gregarious Todd Ustby has immersed himself in everything that makes Triangle residents love living here while meeting Hubert Davis, Mack Brown, Bubba Cunningham and others.
“You get to meet so many more people. You go to the different restaurants, you go to the bakeries, you go shopping, and you get to go the football games,” he said, adding that he cheered for UNC in the football game against Minnesota. “You get to do all these other things instead of if you’re just coming for a women’s basketball game and going back. There’s so many more things you could do that are offered at UNC that people don’t recognize.”
Considering how much the Ustbys love the area, and with James living here, they may hang around after Alyssa Ustby’s UNC career ends, whether that’s after this season or after a fifth season.
“At the end of the year, we’ll decide,” Todd Ustby said. “It’s up to whatever she wants to do. We really like the area. It’s basically up to her. She’s having fun; she’s doing well. She enjoys it. And I would say it’s so much fun meeting all the other parents and stuff. I get along with everybody. I could go have a beer with anybody. Because we get to visit with so many people.”
Tar Heels fans everywhere hope his talented daughter gives him an extra reason to stay longer in the Triangle.
Top photo courtesy of Todd Ustby (from left, Mark, Todd, Lisa, Alyssa, Matt and James)
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