CHAPEL HILL - On the rare occasions Tyler Hansbrough does not feel like pushing up one more bench press, shooting one more hook shot or running one more sprint, the North Carolina forward simply thinks about his older brother, Greg.

Then he does 10 more of each.

"If someone told you [that] you might not be able to ever walk again, then you go out there and run marathons and prove everybody wrong, that's greater than any basketball game to me,'' said the two-time All-America.

"Some people look at hard work as something different ... but what he's done is so much greater than what I'm doing now."

Seventeen years ago, Greg Hansbrough's battle with a brain tumor -- and his determination to walk, talk and play basketball again after its removal partially paralyzed the left side of his body -- set an example for his two younger brothers that has never waned. Work hard, play tough, and never give up.

He will not be at Rupp Arena today when the top-ranked Tar Heels face Kentucky (he's studying for semester exams at the University of Missouri). But his presence will be felt -- particularly by those trying to guard the 6-foot-9, 250-pound brother dubbed "Psycho T."

"He probably would have been a better player than both of us if not for what happened to him as a little kid," said Ben Hansbrough, the youngest of the brothers and a starting guard at Mississippi State. "... But I think he's inspired both of us, Tyler and me, to be better."

A dire prognosis

Family members say Greg was the most athletic of the boys at age 7 1/2. He loved baseball and basketball. "... They'd have their little track meets and things [at school], and when Gregory was in an event, everyone else was just competing for second," said Gene Hansbrough, the boys' father. "He could out-run and out-jump everybody."

Greg was practicing left-handed layups on mini-hoops in the basement when his father, an orthopedic surgeon, noticed his left hand looked clumsy.

Tests revealed a juvenile pilocytic astrocytoma -- a slow-growing, locally malignant tumor at the base of his brain. The prognosis was dire, and Gene found only one neurosurgeon, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., who was willing to operate. Still, the Hansbroughs were warned that if he survived the procedure, Greg might never be able to walk again.

Ben was 3 years old at the time, and does not remember much. Tyler, who was 5, sensed something was not right.

"I remember visiting the hospital ... and I remember going through there and seeing all these people, and I saw my brother Greg, and he was in really bad shape," said Tyler, who considered his big brother his best friend. "That's when it first kind of hit me that, 'Man, something's really wrong with my brother.' And you know how parents are when you're really young; they don't really give you the full details. So I didn't know the severity of it until later."

Greg, now 24, remembers waking up in the hospital with his vision blurry and his left side practically motionless. Doctors did not know if he would ever step out of a wheelchair, but to Greg -- who was in a rehabilitation center in Minnesota for several weeks -- it was never in question. He had incentive.

"They don't know this, but I missed Tyler and Ben like it wasn't anybody's business while I was up there," Greg said. "I wanted to see my brothers again ... I wanted to play with my brothers again."

Starting over

He was back on his feet when he returned to his family home in Poplar Bluff, Mo., but he was weak and wobbly. Gene set up weights in the basement to help strengthen his left side, then a punching bag to take out his frustrations when kids teased him at school. Eventually, Greg relearned how to ride a bike -- something doctors told him he would never do. He learned to shoot free throws with one hand. He started "wrassling" with his little brothers in the basement again.

Eventually, he ran.

"Back then, I had no idea how serious it [my condition] was," Greg said. "Back then, I saw it as something you have to go through, to work hard through a huge obstacle. ... I never thought about what I couldn't do.

"And most important,'' he said, laughing, "I just wanted to beat my brothers one-on-one." And he did.

Even though he lacks fine motor control in his left arm, he dominated the backyard hoop until Tyler, then Ben, reached high school. At a muscular 6-foot-5, Greg liked to back people down in the post, dive for loose balls and be physical in the lane.

"Greg would win and talk so much smack every time he won, so it was always intense ... and no one took it easy on each other,'' Tyler, now 22, said laughing. "The next time we played, we'd try to take it to Greg, And if it got close, Greg was going to nail you, too. If it got close, we were going to nail Greg, the same way he'd nail us."

Sound familiar?

"Yeah,'' Tyler said, "I probably did get some of it [my style] from him."

When Greg got into games at Poplar Bluff High, he received standing ovations -- especially when he buried one of his right-handed hook shots. After all, doctors had told him he would never play contact sports.

"I don't think he ever thought about not playing basketball,'' said the boys' mom, Tami. "That's what the boys did -- they loved sports. ... He wasn't just a hero to his brothers, but to everyone."

The gregarious Greg found another way to stand out from the crowd, too -- on the track. He took up long-distance running as a sophomore, hated it, but persevered because "one of my core values is that once you start something, you finish it. Never quit." By the end of the season, he decided he would one day run a marathon.

Since then, he has finished nine -- three full and six half marathons. Tyler said that when he's at home, Greg runs 10 miles before he ever wakes up to shoot baskets or lift weights. "It's just like I'd done nothing in comparison," Tyler said.

But the inspiration goes both ways.

"He [Tyler] doesn't know this, but I've fed off him a lot when I'd be on my long runs and getting tired," Greg said. "I'd just picture Tyler in the gym, doing his shooting drills, on the track doing his running drills, or in the weight room. And I'd think, 'You know what? If Tyler were a marathoner, that's what he'd be doing.' "

An example and inspiration

These days, when Greg's not studying at Missouri to become a teacher and track coach, he can usually be found behind the bench at UNC or Mississippi State games -- easily his brothers' biggest, and loudest cheerleader.

"When Tyler got hit in the nose [against Duke] last season, I think they had to hold him back from rushing down onto the floor," said Ben, now 19. "And after one of our wins, he was up in the stands, swinging his shirt in the air. He definitely supports us."

His left side will always be weaker than the right, but after annual tests, doctors say there is a zero percent chance the tumor will return.

Greg, who talks to each brother several times a week, admits that when he watches them play, he can't help but wonder, "what if?" But he believes his illness happened for a reason, and that he's meant to do great things. Maybe one of them, the Hansbroughs say, is to be an example of work ethic and inspiration.

That's why Tyler wears No. 50, Greg's high school jersey number.

"It's one of those things where, I wanted, for everything he's done for me, I want him to feel like he's part of my accomplishments, too," Tyler said, pausing to choke back emotion. "For all he's been through, I want him to know I'll always remember him."

Especially in the spring, when it's time to run, heave more weight or attempt one more shot.