Hopefully just extreme caution on the part of UNC as well.
From ACC Now:
North Carolina forward Tyler Hansbrough is "extremely doubtful" to play in Saturday's season opener against Penn, coach Roy Williams said today in a prepared statement.
“We’ve made the decision to hold Tyler Hansbrough out of action a little longer,” Williams said in the statement. “It’s extremely doubtful that he would play against Pennsylvania, and I emphasize extremely doubtful. We will continue to evaluate him and have more information when it becomes available.”
There are two elements to this:
1. Hansbrough has not practiced and Roy tends to not play guys who cannot practice. This is not a punitive thing as much as it is tied to Roy's belief that practice flows into the next game played. From that you can also assume that Hansbrough might not see the Kentucky game either since the time in between Penn and UK is two days.
2. The medical staff is probably erring on the side of caution, then again I have no idea what the latest MRI, assuming he had another one, showed. Hansbrough's father, Gene, said the soreness was gone but that does not mean the MRI might still show something is amiss. That being said, my first instinct is to view this as simply being cautious given that UNC should be able to handle Penn and Tyler Zeller looked good enough in the exhibition to at least make up some of the Hansbrough absence. In other words I think Roy and Co would love to get by 2-3 games to make sure Hansbrough is fully healed. There is a good chance they can do that because the last thing you want is this to come up again in five weeks.