Face of toughness

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Hardly anyone has forgotten the busted and bloody nose Tyler Hansbrough got against Duke last season, and he knows it.

On Halloween, that gave him the idea for the perfect college student’s costume -- easy to pull off, yet witty and wry. He donned one of the three protective masks he wore after Gerald Henderson’s forearm broke his nose last March, then ventured out amid the throngs of revelers on Franklin Street near campus as himself.

“I had Dewey Burke with me, the guy on the team who held me back after getting hit. He played along,” Hansbrough said. “People just laughed.”

Hansbrough could become the national player of the year if he holds off the latest freshman phenom, Kansas State’s Michael Beasley.

But the North Carolina center’s identity beyond the Atlantic Coast Conference is still largely as the player whose nose spewed blood after the hard foul by Henderson in the final minute of a victory by the Tar Heels.

Henderson said the play was unintentional, but he was ejected from the game and served an automatic one-game suspension. Eventually, he apologized to Hansbrough, though a little slowly in the judgment of some in the North Carolina camp.

They meet again tonight when No. 2 Duke plays at No. 3 North Carolina, where Henderson, braced for his reception, said “obviously it’ll be a hostile crowd.”

Hansbrough has been shrugging it off for months.

“Everywhere I go, it’s like, ‘How’s your nose?’ ” he said earlier this season. “That was so long ago. My nose is fine. I’m like, ‘I’ve played in so many other games, and all you’re going to remember me for is my nose being all bloody?’ ”

Hansbrough’s bid to be remembered for something more focuses on winning a national championship.

But he has an unexpected backer in the race for national player of the year.

It’s Duke Coach Mike Krzyzewski, who is weary of all the hullabaloo over freshmen and is touting Hansbrough, a rugged 6-foot-9 junior averaging 21.8 points and 10.4 rebounds while playing for one of the top five teams in the country.

“The freshmen, they’re good players, but come on, there are a lot of good players who are better,” Krzyzewski said. “We’ve gotten into this NBA-like thing that we have to promote freshmen or promote individual players. I mean, Hansbrough, when he’s on the court, is still the best player, whoever he’s playing.

“Beasley’s terrific, but you don’t give player of the year and all this because somebody says he’s a better pro prospect. I mean, if we start doing that in college basketball, we should all be hung, or put out in the cold, wintry mix. We should recognize what this is. It’s UCLA against North Carolina. It’s Duke against Georgetown. That’s our niche.”

Call it a vote for the standout who sticks around. That’s Hansbrough.

He won’t ever be an NBA lottery pick, but his storied work habits have made him known for strength and toughness in an era of flash and finesse.

Among his favorite workouts is pushing an SUV with his teammates.

“It’s kind of like we’re running and pushing. It’s a workout,” Hansbrough said. “It’s definitely in neutral, though.”

Much of his toughness and diligence come from his youth in Poplar Bluff, Mo., where he grew up the middle of three sons of an orthopedic surgeon.

His younger brother, Ben, is a starting guard for Mississippi State, though he has been out recently because of mononucleosis. His older brother, Greg, is in his 20s and has run half-marathons many years after the family was told he might not walk again. The removal of a brain tumor when he was 7 left him partially paralyzed.

Greg’s persistence became part of Tyler’s motivation.

“I’ve always looked up to Greg, and in high school I would be on the court and he would be on the bench,” Hansbrough said. “A lot of older brothers would be jealous, but he was always cheering for me, always pulling for me.”

Think of Hansbrough -- nicknamed “Psycho T” -- as a little bit like some of those hockey pugilists. A brute on the outside, a sweetheart on the inside. On the court, he has a way of getting under opponents’ skin. Off it, he’s a baby-faced big man who gets pedicures.

“I wouldn’t say I write poetry or anything,” Hansbrough said. “I do get pedicures, just to keep up with my feet. Basketball does a number on your feet, blisters and stuff. It’s a relief to my feet to have pedicures.”

At heart, he’s a kid who still likes to play what he calls Texas-style ping-pong, a game he and his high school friends enjoyed back in Poplar Bluff.

“The first person to win two points in a row, the other person -- the loser -- lifts their shirt over their head, and the winner gets to hit the ball at his stomach as hard as he can,” Hansbrough said. “You get a little welt. It stings for about five seconds. The welt can last an hour or until the next day, but nothing over two days.”

For all the dismissive reaction about his nose, the ordeal bothered him for a little longer than he sometimes lets on.

“You guys didn’t see how bloody it got back there. My whole jersey was covered,” he said. “It wasn’t painful at the time, until I woke up the next morning. But just the frustration of having my nose broken and going through the whole process, going to the hospital, X-rays, getting used to the mask. It was extremely frustrating.”

A blow to his mouth earlier in the game left him with another problem.

“Later, my tooth turned gray and I had to have a couple of root canals just to get it back,” he said. “It was painful, to be honest with you.

“Root canals aren’t the best thing in the world. But it’s fine now.”

Hunky-dory, from the sound of it. If tonight’s game is true to form, the fans will be riled and Hansbrough and Henderson will go out of their way to tone it down.

“I mean, you know, words, apologies, whatever, are sometimes appropriate but it’s over with,” Hansbrough said. “We’re moving on.”

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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robyn.norwood@latimes.com