UNC Basketball: The 10 Duke players UNC fans hated most

Gerald Henderson

Gerald Henderson wouldn’t even have made this list if it weren’t for one event: the bloody nose game. On that fateful night in March 2007, Henderson cemented his legacy — at least for UNC basketball fans — forever, and it turned out to be one of the most famous moments in the history of the rivalry.

With just 14 seconds remaining in a double-digit game that North Carolina had controlled throughout, Tyler Hansbrough grabbed a rebound off of a missed free throw. After gathering the ball, he went up for the bucket, and was absolutely clocked in the nose by Henderson’s elbow.

Despite the efforts of game announcer Billy Packer to make the contact seem innocent and unintentional, it’s clear that the hit on Hansbrough’s face was anything but an accident. And while I doubt that Henderson had malicious intent all along, in that moment he was definitely going for Hansbrough’s face, and not the ball.

Check it out for yourself.

In the years since, some of the Henderson hatred has died down, but this clip still gets a reaction from North Carolina when they see it. It helped that Hansbrough and Henderson put together a series of podcasts — the Tobacco Road Podcast — beginning in 2017 that helped them publicly hash out the events, which they’ve clearly put behind them.