ACC has a long history of basketball villains

The talented yet annoying Grayson Allen certainly earned his stripes this past season as the latest villain of ACC basketball. The Duke guard checked off all the boxes in gaining villain status from his outstanding play to his bizarre tripping incidents.

Still, there is little doubting that Allen has a long way to go over his final one or two seasons to gain the mischief-maker stature of Dave Budd, Dan Wells, Art Heyman and John Roche in ACC lore.

If you were wondering why the likes of Tyler Hansbrough, Christian Laettner and J.J. Redick do not appear on that list, it is because they also fell far short of the standard barriers for both engaging in dirty deeds and being subjected to excessive fan abuse.

Mostly, the villains of later years were disliked by opposing teams fans because they were exceptional basketball players, All-Americans all. Duke fans taunted Hansbrough because they believed it might somehow take some of the aggression out of his aggressive style of play. UNC fans still shake their collective heads over Redick’s uncanny accuracy from 3-point land.

As for Laettner, frankly, his villain status was in great part an ESPN creation. The vile repugnance toward Laettner did not gain strength until near the end of his Duke career, and most of that was on a national level. Not until he kicked a Kentucky player, then hit the game-winning shot against the Wildcats in a regional final game did fans really ante up in their dislike for him.

As for Allen, no one seemed to much notice him until he became a budding star during the 2015 Final Four. He elevated his game further this past season and earned All-ACC first-team standing.

Shoving match

Unfortunately for Allen, his inability to control his legs and feet in separate incidents gained him as much notice as his outstanding play. He appeared to intentionally trip a Louisville player on Feb. 8 and a Florida State player on Feb. 25, eventually drawing a reprimand from the ACC.

While the incidents made for perfect fodder to the anti-Duke crowd of ACC fans, Allen’s boorish behavior was the cob to the corn compared with the churlish and sometimes childish acts of yesteryear in the league.

Budd was a burly 6-foot-6, 200-pound enforcer around the basket for Wake Forest from 1958-60. He played in an era when many teams suited up football players to play the role of “goon,” to borrow a hockey term. He also played when on-court fighting was almost an accepted part of the game.

In the most famous incident involving Budd, he engaged in a shoving match with the great Oscar Robertson of Cincinnati in the 1958 Dixie Classic. Budd was in the middle of a melee that broke out during a UNC game at Wake Forest in 1959. By the time Winston-Salem police entered the court and restored order, Wake Forest coach Bones McKinney was wiping blood from his lip after being punched, presumably not by Budd.

Wells was a similar type player for N.C. State in the early 1970s, thus rightfully and affectionately earning the nickname “Dirty Dan” from teammates and opposing players alike. Neither Budd nor Wells could match Heyman when it came to antagonizing opponents and their fans with a hard-nosed style of play accompanied by a nasty disposition.

Pleased to be a rebel

By the time he arrived on the Duke campus in the fall of 1959, Heyman already had established quite a reputation. He was booted from his high school baseball team in New York for fighting with his coach. Heyman was headed to UNC before a recruiting visit to Chapel Hill concluded with his stepfather engaging in a shouting match with Tar Heel coach Frank McGuire.

After he mugged UNC’s Larry Brown on a breakaway layup during Heyman’s sophomore season, a brawl ensued at Cameron Indoor Stadium with 10 Durham police officers needed to clear the court. At halftime of the same game, a UNC male cheerleader patted Heyman on the back on way to the locker room. Heyman turned and swung at the cheerleader.

Prior to his junior season, Heyman was charged and convicted of assaulting a Duke student. Late in a game at Clemson during his senior season, Heyman gave a middle-finger salute to Tigers fans.

Heyman was an All-American player who seemed to revel in being a rebel.

“Who gave that school more publicity, good or bad, than me?” Heyman said years later when Duke was still contemplating whether to retire his jersey No. 25. “Hey, everybody doesn’t go to church. Everybody doesn’t cross their T’s and dot their I’s. It takes a lot of different people. To have a Bloody Mary, you need salt and pepper.”

‘So much hate’

It took years for Roche to get to the same point in his dealing with being a villain. As a South Carolina player from 1969-71, Roche was the quintessential product of his environment. McGuire was calculating in building an us-against-the-world mentality, first at UNC, then at South Carolina. As a result, nearly every rhubarb during his 15 seasons in the league could be traced to the legendary coach.

Not helping matters was the fact that South Carolina was the first team outside the Big Four to sustain success within the league. As a result, Roche received bags of hate mail during his career, most of it postmarked from North Carolina. He was accused of kicking Duke’s Dick DeVenzio during a game, kneeing UNC’s Steve Previs and exchanging words with UNC coach Dean Smith.

Before a game at Wake Forest, students held a mock flushing of Roche down a commode. When he was injured in the semifinals of 1970 ACC tournament, some in the Charlotte Coliseum cheered.

“There is so much hate throughout the ACC, especially among the fans,” Roche said following his final game at South Carolina. “Basketball is more than just a game in this league.”

Roche was a two-time ACC Player of the Year before an eight-year career in the ABA and NBA. He has since been a successful lawyer in Denver. When asked this week if he had any advice for Duke’s Allen in carrying the mantle as the ACC’s latest villain, Roche responded with the following email:

“Grayson Allen should not lose a second’s sleep over the criticism; should not answer another question concerning it; and should use it as incentive to continue his excellent collegiate career. That certain people in this region of the country did not care for me is something I wear today as a badge of honor and I welcome Grayson to the club.”

Roche added a smiley face at the end of his email.

This story was originally published April 15, 2016 at 2:37 PM with the headline "ACC has a long history of basketball villains."