By his senior season at Duke, Christian Laettner was a wildly divisive figure. Duke fans loved him, naturally; everyone else despised him. And this was before the Kentucky game where he tapped his foot on Aminu Timberlake’s chest (you can tell it was a tap as opposed to a stomp, because Timberlake laughed and clapped after he did it. Most people wouldn’t laugh and clap after a 6-11 guy stomped on their chest).
Everywhere Duke went he was a target and, amazingly, he thrived with the abuse (there was a shot of his mother during the tournament just clearly cursing up a storm, angry about the abuse her boy was taking).