Chris Duhon and the Blue Devils don't have to apologize for winning with class. Bob Rosato/SI

Duke center Shelden Williams never realized just how much animosity there was toward his team until one of his cousins made the mistake of walking through a mall wearing a Duke T-shirt one day last year. Total strangers yelled at her, screaming out how much they hated the Blue Devils. She couldn't have attracted more venom if she had clubbed baby seals in the middle of the food court.

It happened in Augusta, Ga., but it could have been in Anytown, USA, because Duke hatred is that widespread. Steadily and inevitably, in much the same way that the Blue Devils have been amassing trips to the Sweet 16 and Final Four, ill will toward Duke has grown over the past decade or so to the point where Coach Mike Krzyzewski's program is the most disliked team in college basketball. Stick them in pinstripes and the Dookies could pass for the Yankees.

How does the public hate the Blue Devils? Let us count the ways. MSNBC conducted an unscientific survey in which it asked people to choose the most hated team in the sport, and Duke was the runaway winner (loser?) with 53 percent of the more than 20,000 votes cast. North Carolina was next with 18 percent and no other school drew more than 11 percent of the vote. There is a hateduke.com Web site, which we're guessing isn't much different from the Duke-Sucks.com site. A Google search for the term "hate Duke" turned up 1,980 results. Folks just can't stand the Blue Devils.

More accurately, much of the public can't stand Duke's success, which continued on Sunday when the Blue Devils, who have missed the Sweet 16 three times in the past 18 seasons, earned their 10th trip to the Final Four in 24 years under Krzyzewski with a regional final win over Xavier. If it beats UConn on Saturday and either Georgia Tech or Oklahoma State on Monday night, Duke will have its fourth national championship and second in the past four years.

Why do you hate Duke? The Blue Devils win too much Because of analysts like 'Dookie V.' Its fans are arrogant and smug I respect Duke, but like to see it lose Hate? Duke is the best thing about hoops View Results

In other words, the only thing Duke has done to deserve such enmity is win, a fact that says far more about the haters than the hated. People may think they hate Duke, but they don't. They are jealous of Duke, they are bored by Duke, they are intimidated by Duke, or maybe they just were rejected by Duke, but they don't hate Duke.

What is there to hate? Duke is everything we're supposed to want in a college program. Duke players go to class, stay out of trouble and most of them graduate -- they have a 92 percent graduation rate during Krzyzewski's tenure. They win without cheating; can you remember a major recruiting scandal -- or even a minor one -- at Duke? Didn't think so. Their coach has been loyal to the school, resisting offers to go to the NBA and triple his salary.

The Blue Devils win the right way, so where is the animosity coming from? From the way that many of us react to success that we're not a part of -- with disdain. We find sustained excellence to be tedious, so much so that we start rooting for Anybody-But-Duke U.

We're so tired of seeing the Blue Devils at the top of the polls or in the Final Four almost every year that we start attributing negative qualities to them that aren't even there. Duke is supposed to be cold and corporate, the Microsoft of college hoops. Well, OK, except that its home gym, Cameron Indoor Stadium, is one of the coziest, most old-fashioned facilities in major college sports. It's supposed to be arrogant and smug. How is it then that the Blue Devils continue to produce some of the classiest individuals in the sport, such as NBA players Grant Hill and Elton Brand, or one of their current stars, freshman Luol Deng, who is so polite to his elders that at first you think he's putting you on?

If we hate Duke, what emotion do we have left for the schools at which boosters pay the players under the table, or where the "student-athletes" are given sham tests in bogus classes, or where the admissions department forgets about its academic standards when the applicant is 7-feet tall? How about academic-fraud-sucks.com, or hatecheating.com? If you want something to hate in college athletics, we can give you a wide selection of choices. As for Duke, you don't have to root for the Blue Devils to win another title, but it wouldn't hurt to show them a little love.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.