Glad to see that Ohio A&M made a respectable showing, and that Oxford Tech got at least one vote.

This is a poll of fans from a midmajor site so that makes sense.

Maybe that explains why "Ole Miss" and other large schools didn't get more votes when there was plenty reason to not like them.

I still don't like it that Maryland left the ACC. When you think about the ACC one of the first schools you think is Maryland. And they bolted.

I can see where Jay Wright may give off a bad vibe to someone who doesn't follow Villanova. From a distance he gives off kind of a "I'm better than you" vibe and until I read maybe a Sports Illustrated article about him after they won the title I figured he was just another East Coast jerk.

I think what separates Duke from Kentucky on the hatred scale is the fact that they are a private school filled with a lot of blue blood students that are arguably smug about all things, not just basketball. 25 years later the whole Christian Laettner culture is still alive and well in most eyes I think.

Right or wrong a popular sentiment I hear about UK fans is "well let those hillbillies cheer for their team. They don't have anything else to be happy about in life."

The Butler thing is a head scratcher for me too. The only thing that I could see villainizing them pre Big East was just that they won a lot and were the poster child for the Horizon and arguably mid major basketball (with say Gonzaga sharing that space?)

-The Huggins hate I think gets diluted some because of him being at WVU. While a historically solid program, the Mountaineers aren't one of those super elite programs that always win. They usually have been more of a spoiler in the old Big East tourneys, NCAAs etc. Plus I think he has shed some of the baggage he carried around while in Cincinnati (but I honestly don't follow WV basketball closely). Probably helps that he is in a Power 5 conference now and can maybe draw from a richer talent base and not take as many risks in his recruiting as he did when trying to sell the Metro/Conference USA to a high school player.

That's the ACC's fault for diluting their product but all conferences are doing it. Mizzou and Texas A&M in the SEC? Didn't think I'd see that happen in my lifetime. As far as the ACC, as long as I can remember if somebody mentioned it, the first schools that came to mind were Maryland, Virginia, UNC, Clemson followed by Duke, NC State, Wake. GaTech used to be in the SEC, so to me they are not hardly a traditional ACC and Florida State even less. FSU used to be in a conference with Cincinnati and Memphis when I was in high school.

Me as well. It was a very competitive conference, both for football and basketball, and it did well in non-conference games and bowl games. It was all about the Big East schools being (stupidly) lured by other conferences TV deals. And in a handful of years, some of those TV deals could be vastly different.

Agreed on the problem there being the two priorities. I'm with your approach. I'll watch football, but once November rolls around, college hoops is the top of my list for appointment sports viewing. The Big East is outstanding now, but it's not as great as it was with Cuse, Pitt, UC, WVU, etc all in the conference together. As far as leagues go, I spend most of my basketball watching time (outside of the two 'Cats I cheer for) watching the Big 12 and the B1G. I'm a big fan of Big 12 hoops because of the conference schedule format.