Sports hate is intensely personal. That's because we can't quantify by numbers or facts why we hate the teams or players that we do.
It's relatively rare that an entire basketball or football team has personally wronged you. For instance, there are few recorded stories about a basketball team taking turns pegging a fan with Twizzlers and Ring Pops while the fan is attempting to change a flat tire on the side of the road. Or times when head coaches have kicked your dog while peeing on your front lawn.
Nope, most of us hate teams, players or coaches based on no actual interaction with one another. Somehow this makes the hate more pure. We hate and the people we hate have no idea we exist. Such is the unequal balance of sports fandom. It's not logical, it's not rational, and it's often not based on any practical reality. That's because sports hate is visceral -- we feel this hate all the way to the core of our fandom, even if explaining why we feel this way is almost impossible.
Just for fun, next time your friend says he hates a player, coach or team, respond logically to his hate by asking him a string of questions.
You: "Why do you hate (insert player, team or coach)?"
Friend response: "Look at (player, team or coach). Just look at them, all smug and cocky and wearing those stupid blue uniforms."
You nod. Then continue: "What have they ever done to you to make you hate them?"
Friend response: "What kind of question is that? Look at the way their fans are always pointing at the camera and wearing camouflage. I hate them."
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| Who hates Coach K and the Dukies? (Getty Images) |
Explaining why we hate makes us see how illogical this hate actually is and, paradoxically, makes us hate even more. Plus we want to kill the questioner. Keep this questioning of a sports fan who hates another team going long enough, and eventually it leads to screamed threats, spilled beer and broken bones. But at no point is there ever a logical answer to any of these questions.
Hate is there. We don't question it. Religion is a leap of faith; fan hate is no leap at all.
Nevertheless, we're aware that there are any number of factors that can allow hate to fester: geographical proximity, conference rivalries, perception that a team is stocked with players you wish would die, success, being a team coached by Bill Belichick. The roster of reasons for hate is long and varied. Chances are you've spent hours sitting around debating with your friends why you hate certain teams and asserting that everyone else hates those teams as well. Maybe you're right. Maybe you're wrong. But assessing the level of hate directed toward respective teams has, until now, been virtually impossible.
Until, that is, CBSSports.com created an official NCAA Tourney bracket challenge for facebook.com. As part of the registration for the bracket, each Facebook account holder is asked their favorite and most despised team. Since its creation, this application has been advertised all over Facebook and CBSSports.com. So there's a substantial number of Facebook account holders who have already added the bracket application to their profiles.
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| Figuratively, not literally. (Getty Images) |
Despite my status as the unmarried pregnant daughter of CBS Sports, the creators of this application entrusted me with the raw data of hated and loved teams from all the Facebook users. And now I'm able to prove, with the data to back it up, who the most hated and loved college basketball teams are in America.
I've broken these rankings up into two groups, those who've received a minimum of 200 total votes and those who've received less than 200. This was to ensure that small schools didn't escape the level of hate they so richly deserve based merely on a scarcity of votes. So enjoy.
(Note: The way these rankings were determined via a complicated mathematical algorithm called "counting." But to clarify, we didn't just count who was the most hated; rather, we balanced out those teams that were hated with how often they were also loved. So these rankings are not merely a reflection of how many people hated a school. In particular, the below schools were all much more hated than beloved.)
Without further ado, here are the most hated college basketball teams in America counting down from 10 to 1 (minimum 200 votes):
10. Washington Huskies
9. Oklahoma Sooners
8. Georgia Bulldogs
7. Ole Miss Rebels
6. Ohio State Buckeyes
5. Missouri Tigers
4. Michigan Wolverines
3. Florida Gators
2. Duke Blue Devils
1. Southern California Trojans
As you can see, all of these top vote getters were large schools who've tended to have success in either football or basketball over the past 10 years. Which is fine. Unless you're a fan of Missouri, Ole Miss or Washington. People don't hate you guys because you ever win championships in anything, they just hate you. That's got to be tough.
So these large school rankings were pretty entertaining to see, but when it comes to pure hate, I tended to enjoy the smaller schools that people have chosen to despise. Because often I have no idea where these schools are located. And sometimes I don't even know what their mascots are.
Here goes with the bottom 10 schools who've received less votes but been hated just as much (often more so) percentage-wise. In fact the bottom six teams on this list were the most hated college basketball teams on earth.
10. Youngstown State Penguins
9. IPFW Mastodons
8. Yale Bulldogs
7. Akron Zips
6. New Jersey Tech Highlanders
5. Utah Utes
4. Coastal Carolina Chanticleers
3. Canisius Golden Griffins
2. Harvard Crimson
1. Princeton Tigers
Check back next week when we'll examine the most beloved teams in America. Until then feel free to join the ClayNation bracket challenge.
