There are certain college basketball players that just have a gift for getting under the skin of opposing fans.
Some guys will always be easy targets. You can just draw a giant X on your back if you fall under one or more of the following categories:
• History of trouble
• Excessive media attention
• Brash personality (thug personas or goodie two shoes are both welcome)
• Affiliated with a certain school (more on that later…)
In college football, fans are so far physically removed from the faceless warriors playing the game that visitors often only face getting booed while they trot onto the field. Not so in college basketball. Fans are right on top of you with a wide array of boos, chants and taunts.
As every great story needs a fixating antagonist, we count down the Top 10 Most Despised College Basketball Players.
And what better time to do that than the holidays?
10. Allen Iverson (Georgetown)
Iverson was a marked man as soon as he showed up on campus after spending four months of his senior year of high school in prison; he allegedly struck a woman in the head with a chair during a bowling alley brawl.
Iverson’s two seasons of college ball were filled with fans across the Big East chanting “Jailbird” and waving bowling pins in the air. It didn’t help that he was always talking trash. Now back with the Sixers, AI wasn’t always so adored in the City of Brotherly Love. In 1995, Villanova fans went so far as to hold up signs that called Georgetown “Convict U” and another one that said “Iverson: The Next Jordan” – except Jordan was crossed out and replaced with “O.J.”
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9. Eric Devendorf (Syracuse)
Last spring The Big Lead named Devendorf the most hated player in the NCAA Tournament. His response? “I know everybody thinks I’m an a**hole” – with a smile on his face. Fans certainly had plenty of ammunition after he was almost thrown out of school for a physical altercation with a female, a myriad of tattoos and plenty of showboating to boot.
Devendorf just ate it up while drilling threes to lead the ‘Cuse to last year’s Sweet Sixteen. But he shockingly left school after his junior year only to go undrafted. He currently plays for the NBDL’s Reno Bighorns and one can only wonder how high he would have climbed on this list if he’d stuck around this season…
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8. Steve Wojciechowski (Duke)
Normally people love an undersized player without a jump shot that plays defense like a mad man. But not when they’re from Duke. Instead, “Wojo” was viewed as the Rudy from hell. And fans just sneered when Duke’s PG used his patented floor slap to fire himself up on D.
Wojo sealed a spot on this list during Duke’s 1998 Elite Eight game vs. Kentucky with this flop that fooled Billy Packer and had an entire state screaming at their TV screens:
Wojo has served as Coach K’s assistant since 1999.
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7. Corky Taylor (Minnesota)
Although this is a light-hearted list, make no mistake – January 25, 1972 was possibly the darkest day in college basketball history. In a hotly contested matchup for the Big Ten title, Minnesota trailed Ohio State 50-44 with 36 seconds left when Corky Taylor hacked OSU’s Luke Witte out of frustration.
Taylor appeared to show good sportsmanship and remorse by extending his hand to Witte… only to knee the Buckeye in the groin. The act set off a wild melee as the game was called and Witte was carried off on a stretcher. Taylor was suspended for the rest of the season but returned in 1973 to the chagrin of Big Ten fans everywhere.
Thankfully, Taylor and Witte have since become friends and put this ugly incident behind them. Taylor still resides outside Minneapolis.
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6. 1991 UNLV: Greg Anthony, Anderson Hunt, Stacey Augmon, Larry Johnson, George Ackles
OK, we cheated. But we had to include the entire starting lineup from the 1991 Runnin’ Rebels team. They were the outcasts of the college basketball world after a winning streak that reached 45 games which included a 30-point blowout of Duke in the 1990 title game.
The rematch vs. the Dookies in the 1991 Final Four was portrayed as a David and Goliath matchup that sadly had a racist undertone to it. It didn’t help that Jerry Tarkanian had a history of cheating and rumors swirled about how he compiled so much talent in Vegas. Sports Illustrated summed up the public perception of the Rebs on the cover of their ‘90-’91 preview, with Larry Johnson and Stacey Augmon dressed as mobsters:
As soon as Duke prevailed the media immediately ran with the theme of “teamwork over talent.” And when a photo surfaced shortly after the Final Four of three UNLV players in a hot tub with notorious sports cheat Richie “The Fixer,” Duke’s win was officially labeled a triumph of good over evil.
