There's something about a villain that makes it impossible to remove our focus. Whether it's Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, The Joker in Batman, Aaron Burr in Hamilton, or Wile E. Coyote in Looney Tunes, there's something inherently intoxicating about a good villain. Eventually, the best villains split people in two camps: lovers and haters.
The same goes for a good sports villain. The best sports villain makes it to where we can't take our eyes off them. We want them so badly to lose that we treat their opponents like our favorite team. We've seen so many sports teams that ended up being villains. The Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, and Alabama Crimson Tide are all villains because of their popularity and the bandwagon that comes with it. However, in college basketball, there are some tried and true villains unlike anywhere in sports.
For this article, we're going to focus on the players. There are dozens of villain coaches and administrators in college basketball. Depending on who you ask, Rick Pitino, John Calipari, and Mike Krzyzewski would be near the top of the list for villain coaches. Who are the biggest villain players?
10. Adam Morrison, Gonzaga Bulldogs
Adam Morrison has an interesting legacy. The Gonzaga Bulldogs, for the longest time, were the lovable losers who would dominate the regular season and then fail in the tournament. However, the hype given to them despite a lack of success in the tourney started to irk the masses. Why are we still giving Gonzaga number-one seeds for beating up on the West Coast Conference?
Things hit a fever pitch with Adam Morrison. The man with the stache was fawned over for his first couple of years in college. Then, the tides turned. The schtick wore off, and people started to root against Gonzaga because they were no longer the lovable loser, they were the privileged university that hadn’t earned its reputation.
Morrison was the NCAA scoring champ in 2006 and finished that season as a consensus All-American, but all many remember about him was the tears he shed when he lost in the Sweet Sixteen that year. That ended up being the furthest he got in the NCAA Tournament.
He had the nickname Vanilla Villain, he was drafted third overall in the NBA Draft, and he won two championships while riding the bench for the Los Angeles Lakers. He was a legendary figure in college basketball, but there were way more haters who were happy to see his NBA career falter.
9. Aaron Craft, Ohio State Buckeyes
Many are used to hating on Ohio State as a football school. Especially during the Urban Meyer era, there were a lot of villains who wore Buckeyes red. However, when talking about villains on the basketball court in Columbus, there was nobody like Aaron Craft.
Like many of the villains on this list, Craft is one of the most beloved players for his team. Buckeyes fans absolutely love this dude and go crazy when he returns to campus. However, when looking at his reputation outside of Ohio State, he brings serious anger from opposing fans.
Craft played hard and fast, and he had a knack for big moments. He helped Ohio State to a two seed in 2013, and he helped the Buckeyes take down a feisty Iowa State team in the second round with a last-second three-pointer. He also got Bruce Pearl fired at Tennessee after he was photographed at a barbecue with the former basketball coach. Some Tennessee fans still hold contempt towards him for that.
When he went to Ann Arbor, the fans would do their best to send him heinous trash talk. The rivalry there is obvious, but even non-traditional rivals wanted a piece of Craft. His defense was aggressive and physical, and the referees struggled to figure out how to call him. There was frustration with the whole process, and it caused him to be a villain.
8. Trae Young, Oklahoma Sooners
There’s just something about some athletes that makes them inherently hateable. Trae Young is one of the NBA’s biggest villains today. New York Knicks fans despise the man, and we don’t think that’s going to change much now that he’s been traded to the Washington Wizards. His play style is raw, and his attitude can be grating, but that wasn’t much different from what he was in college.
Big 12 fans know about the Trae Young experience. He was getting a ton of hype with the Oklahoma Sooners, and that added a little extra juice for the other teams in the conference. Everyone from traditional rivals Texas to superstar opponents like Kansas to middle-of-the-pack opponents like West Virginia brought their A-game to take down Trae Young.
Young had a nonchalance that really drove fans and opponents crazy. And it didn’t stop him from putting up insane numbers. He led the NCAA in both points and assists. He was a statistics machine, but many claimed he might be stat packing, and he didn’t do better than a 10-seed in the NCAA tournament. His numbers didn’t turn into wins at the level they should have for the talent he was bringing to the table.
Despite his statistics, his lack of defense became a focus, and many blamed that for Oklahoma’s record. Young was only in college for one year, and he’s a much bigger villain in the NBA, but we have to acknowledge where the origin story began, and it began in Norman.
7. Eric Devendorf, Syracuse Orange
Eric Devendorf was considered American’s Top Villain for multiple years. He was hated. Not only did it gain the attention of the best of the best fanbases, but it caught the eyes and ears of top college basketball journalists around the country. Syracuse was still considered a powerhouse in the sport, and people paid attention to what was happening in Western New York.
He was fiery and eclectic. His tattoos made him stand out on the court, and his antics made him despised off of it. He would celebrate everything that he did well. Hit a three-pointer in the second quarter? He would be pulling on his jersey like he just won the Big East Tournament in 1997.
It was honestly bizarre for legendary coach Jim Boeheim to have a guy like Devendorf on his team. This was so unlike what Boeheim wanted Syracuse to represent, but talent is talent.
Even more frustrating, Devendorf wouldn’t give certain teams the time of day. If he felt that the opponent didn’t deserve the full Devendorf experience, he would come to work, shoot his shots, and go home. Somehow, that made playing him even more frustrating. And that’s the quality of a true villain. He’s one who can take you off your game in many different ways.
6. Marshall Henderson, Ole Miss Rebels
Ole Miss is not a name that is synonymous with college basketball success, but when it comes to villains, no list is complete without Marshall Henderson. It was almost like the last of history for the Rebels made us hate Henderson’s antics even more. There’s a confident basketball player, then there’s Marshall Henderson. He was beyond cocky. He was in your face with how he felt about his game.
Henderson was another one who got famous by popping the name on the front of his jersey after three-pointers. One thing that pushes Henderson ahead of multiple others on this list is the fact that he would taunt opposing fans. He was not above jawing with the crowd and trading insults with the student section.
He was just a personality. He would make faces at his opponents and hand gestures that had to throw people off.
This is a man who said he liked it when people booed him. It makes him smile! He had many adjectives used to describe his college career. He was a madman, an acquired taste, brazen, outspoken, and most of all, he was a villain.
5. J.J. Redick, Duke Blue Devils
Remember when we talked about the inherent villains in other sports? The Yankees and the Cowboys of the sports world? The Duke Blue Devils fill that role in college basketball. Everything about Duke basketball screams villain. They are an elitist organization that only allows a certain type of player on the roster. This is an organization that feels like privilege is forced upon the franchise, and if you aren’t born with a silver spoon, you’re probably heading to another North Carolina university.
J.J. Redick fell into the villain role by accident. If he played for Vanderbilt or LSU, he’s probably not on this list, but he seemed to embrace his role as the villain eventually. He’s a sharp shooter unlike any we’ve seen in the NCAA, bringing this new era of three-point shooting to the mid-2000s.
And it was this slyness about Redick that made him hated across the country. He had this slight smile that made you angry as an opponent. It’s almost demeaning when he hits a three and smiles in your face.
Eventually, the harassment that Redick faced turned him cold. He wanted to crush opponents because it felt like survival to him. He turned the outside criticism into internal strife. He built a brand of dominance that thrived off the hate. So, in an effort to bring out the best in himself, he invited more hate.
4. Joakim Noah, Florida Gators
The Florida Gators are underrated as far as hateable franchises go. When they were winning championships, they did it with a cockiness that drove opposing fanbases nuts. They didn’t necessarily go into these games wanted to crush the Gators, but by the end of each game, a new rival was obtained.
And Joakim Noah was the top guy. Not only was he the best player in the country, but he was playing as hard and as physical as anyone. It was something between a UFC fight and front court battle everytime you faced Noah. And because he was always physical, he got away with more than almost any other player. Are the referees really going to call a foul on every play and slow down the game? They aren’t, so Noah is getting away with a lot.
Noah brought the best out of his teammates and the worst out of opposing fans. It caused people in the stands to say heinous things, and that drove the Gators to a National Championship.
Noah even got into an altercation with a Kentucky cheerleader. Who gets mad at the cheerleaders? The Wildcats cheerleader put her pom-poms in Noah’s face, and he swatted them away. Even the cheerleaders were hating on Noah!
3. Chris Webber, Michigan Wolverines
This was the entire Fab Five, but it wasn’t worth breaking out into five different selections. People hated the Fab Five, which included legendary players Jalen Rose, Juwan Howard, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson. However, Chris Webber was the star. Even if he wasn’t the guy pushing the new look and attitude forward like the others on the team, he was their best player and the guy who took the most hate.
Whether it was the baggy shorts or the culture they proported that fans “weren’t ready” for. Listen, there was some undertones here. The Fab Five weren’t taking harsh fouls or treating people with disrespect. They were a vibe, and some people just inherently hated that vibe.
There were plenty of people who hated on the University of Michigan and Chris Webber because of the way they carried themselves. This is why there was so much attention here. They were truly treated like heroes or villains across the country. There was nobody who had no opinion about the Fab Five.
This is also why Webber’s mistake in the 1993 National Championship is still discussed today. He dribbled into the corner against North Carolina and got stuck. He called for a timeout, but the Wolverines didn’t have one. Play was stopped, and the Wolverines were assessed a technical foul, essentially handing the Tar Heels the win.
2. Grayson Allen, Duke Blue Devils
When a player like Grayson Allen plays for Duke, everything he does is polarizing and magnified. Maybe he can get away with tripping people on Pittsburgh. He can’t do it at Duke and not receive intense scrutiny. Maybe he can get away with emotional outbursts while playing at USC, but he can’t do it at Duke without serious eye rolling from the rest of the nation. Allen had reasons to be hateable, but they came with a microscope of analysis because he played in Durham.
After the tripping incidents, Allen said all the right things. He was contrite and even admitted to his wrongdoing, saying he understood why fans felt the way they did about his actions. While he didn’t do the exact same thing, he did plenty to keep the villain role alive.
He continues to make little moves here and there that would get under his opponent’s skin. Sometimes he would get into scuffles, and there was on-court pushing and shoving. In a world where Duke acted as if it were polished, Allen was anything but. He looked the part, but he acted like an attention-seeking newbie.
This was a rare occurrence where a villain had done everything to earn the role in a social media world. So much is done today to protect a university’s brand, including the players it retains each year. However, Allen’s basketball prowess allowed Duke to overlook his transgressions, which made it even worse. Allen was so bad that Fansided named an award after him once for the most hated college basketball player.
1. Christian Laettner, Duke Blue Devils
If you notice, this list is full of players who played in the 21st century. That’s kind of how being a villain works in sports. As long as you’re not doing anything criminal or ultimately devastating to the sport or to the reputation of the university, your villainry will eventually be seeing with rose-colored glasses, and you will be seen as a part of the history of the game. One of the few exceptions is Christian Laettner.
Don’t get us wrong, he’s considered one of the best college players of all time. There is more talk about his value as a player and his career as a whole, but that villainry is still very much a part of that conversation 40 years later.
Laettner did plenty in his college career to earn his reputation. He was cocky to the point of obnoxious. His arrogance was beyond reproach.
Then there was the stomp. During the Elite Eight in 1992, Laettner stomped on Aminu Timberlake of Kentucky. This was the same game where he hit the biggest shot possibly in the history of the sport. It almost felt like there was no karma. The guy who made this outright dirty move to another player gets the glory of the game-winning shot. And that’s why, to this day, many still hate this man.