Louisville basketball: The 10 most hated opposing players

DeMarcus Cousins – Kentucky

2010

Yet again, we take a sip of Haterade for one of our sworn enemy’s players, “Boogie” Cousins. His transgressions against Louisville player Jared Swopshire in a scuffle over a loose ball land him extremely high on this countdown, and deservingly so.

I think you could lump in his overall attitude and a splash of his unstoppability into the mix, but overall it comes down to this: a) he was a Kentucky player (’nuff said), b) he elbowed a Louisville player in the face, c) he was dominant, and d) he knew he was that dominant.

As far as the elbowing incident, it played out like we have seen before on this countdown. It was an emotional reaction by a player who could not keep his frustrations in check.

Cousins had his shot stripped from him less than a minute into the game, causing an unfolding frenzy with several players fumbling around with the ball trying to gain possession. Actually, after many looks I’m pretty upset with the onlooking Louisville players as Swopshire wrestled with Cousins and two other defenders leading up to the impending blow being thrown.

I think in this case, along with his stout double-double of 18 points and 18 rebounds in that game, what led to the outrage over DeMarcus Cousins was the fact that he wasn’t ejected and also that Swopshire received a technical as well, when he did nothing other than react to an elbow to the grill.