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.
