Meet College Basketball's All-Lightning Rod Team in 2014-15 Season
Love them or hate them, but those are your only two options for the five college basketball players (and one coach) on the 2014-15 All-Lightning Rod team.
Every year, there are a handful of players about whom it is all but impossible to remain neutral while claiming to be a fan of college hoops.
For the most part, it's through no fault of their own—unless you count being so noteworthy that we insist on writing about them as "fault." Occasionally, there are players like Marshall Henderson who both play and act well outside the realm of normalcy, but All-Lightning Rod players are usually just kids doing what they love to do and doing it better than most.
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Though they may not ask for our undying love or hatred, they receive it. It's simply up to you to decide which side you'll take.
We've chosen one player from each position who we think will wind up being extremely polarizing to fans, stating the case for both loving and hating him.
Let's get things started with the on-court leader of the favorites to win the 2015 national championship.
Point Guard: Andrew Harrison, Kentucky
Why we love him: Do you have any idea how rare it is for a top-five recruit to play multiple collegiate seasons?
Hopefully this chart will help demonstrate how far Harrison is from the majority. Players with names bookended by asterisks are the ones who spent at least two years in school.
| Year | No. 1 Recruit | No. 2 Recruit | No. 3 Recruit | No. 4 Recruit | No. 5 Recruit |
| 2006 | G. Oden | K. Durant | B. Wright | S. Hawes | T. Young |
| 2007 | E. Gordon | O.J. Mayo | K. Love | M. Beasley | D. Rose |
| 2008 | B. Jennings | B. Mullens | J. Holiday | *S. Samuels* | T. Evans |
| 2009 | D. Favors | J. Wall | D. Cousins | A. Bradley | *J. Henson* |
| 2010 | *H. Barnes* | K. Irving | *J. Sullinger* | J. Selby | B. Knight |
| 2011 | A. Davis | A. Rivers | M. Kidd-Gilchrist | B. Beal | Q. Miller |
| 2012 | N. Noel | S. Muhammad | *K. Anderson* | *I. Austin* | S. Adams |
| 2013 | A. Wiggins | J. Randle | A. Gordon | J. Parker | *A. Harrison* |
In total, 32 of the last 40 top-five recruits played exactly one year of college basketball. Brandon Jennings didn't play any years in college, leaving just seven studs who came back for multiple seasons.
Most of those kids had one foot out the door before even deciding where to play their one year of college ball. But Harrison—due to some combination of wanting to win a title at Kentucky and knowing that he still had plenty of room for improvement—chose to come back for a second season.
Maybe "love" is a strong word for our feeling toward him, but we want to see him succeed.
Even if you hate Kentucky with every fiber of your being, root for Harrison due to the theory that it could lead to more highly rated recruits making the same decision. After all, if we're worried that some players could follow Emmanuel Mudiay's example, we should also hope that some will follow Harrison's.
Why we hate him: Rooting for a Kentucky point guard in the 2010s is roughly the equivalent of rooting for a Duke point guard in the 1990s.
Inevitably, the primary ball-handler for the Wildcats is going to come under intense scrutiny.
And it doesn't help matters in the least that his backup has quickly evolved into one of the most beloved freshmen in the country.
It's one thing when a fanbase is constantly pleading for more playing time for a backup—see: Cleveland, Johnny Manziel—but what is it going to look like when an entire nation of college basketball analysts greets every Harrison mistake with a call for Tyler Ulis?
In summation, if Harrison plays really well, everyone outside of Big Blue Nation will despise him for allowing BBN to incessantly gloat. If he struggles, however, everyone will be calling for his head in exchange for more playing time for Ulis.
We're glad you're back for another year, Mr. Harrison, but you may want to avoid reading anything that anyone writes about you for the next six months.
Shooting Guard: Ron Baker, Wichita State
Why we love him: Baker epitomizes everything we love about college basketball.
Baker is a small-town kid playing for what used to be a small-fry school. Whether the Shockers need a bucket, rebound, assist, steal or block, Baker not only can be the one to step up, but he tries like heck to make sure he has done everything within his power to help the team win.
We first fell in love with Baker during the 2013 NCAA tournament when he was draining three-pointers left and right as a freshman against some of the best teams in the country. Images like that are hard to forget.
Between being scrappy and immensely talented, Baker is essentially a version of Aaron Craft who doesn't play nearly as many nationally televised games.
Why we hate him: Just reread the last sentence in our justification for loving him, and it's easy to see why we hate him.
Baker is the first name mentioned in virtually any conversation about the best mid-major players in the country, even though he hardly has the statistics to back up those claims.
Forget about best mid-major player. Baker probably isn't even one of the two best players in a Missouri Valley conference that includes his teammate, Fred VanVleet, and Northern Iowa's Seth Tuttle.
But because of his heroics in 2013, he is revered as a man among mice.
Baker isn't Adam Morrison 2.0. Or Stephen Curry 2.0. Or Jimmer Fredette 2.0. Stop treating him like he is.
Small Forward: Caris LeVert, Michigan
Why we love him: LeVert was arguably the best player last season for Michigan, but you wouldn't know it from the media's infatuation with Nik Stauskas, Mitch McGary and, to a lesser degree, Glenn Robinson III.
LeVert led the Wolverines in steals, ranked second in assists and was third in rebounds, all while shooting better than 40 percent from three-point range. Without his 34.0 minutes per game, Michigan doesn't come anywhere close to winning 28 games last season.
Now that those aforementioned names are out of town, Michigan's season really hinges on him. Even if you don't root for the Wolverines, you have to admit it'll be fun watching LeVert try to become the first Big Ten player to eclipse 20.5 PPG since Eric Gordon did so in 2007-08.
Why we hate him: We don't yet, but we will.
They're no Duke or Kentucky, but few teams in the country are as polarizing as the Wolverines—if only because their fans incessantly and vocally refuse to accept that they are anything other than the best team in the world.
Just look at McGary. He was arguably the most valuable returning player from the team that made the 2013 Final Four, but he became one of the most despised players in the country before the 2013-14 season even began.
It wasn't because of anything that he did. It was because he was glorified as a potential All-American before ever proving that he could be the leader of a Top 25 team.
Sound familiar?
Power Forward: Chris Walker, Florida
Why we love him: "Sky" Walker has got to be the most ridiculous physical specimen in the college game today.
He's not Blake Griffin. He's not Anthony Davis.
But he's close.
What he's capable of doing is almost cartoonish. In fact, it's as if he was manufactured from the genes of Mr. Tall, Tigger and Popeye. If you can't have fun watching him in action, there's something wrong with your medulla oblongata.
Due to a violation of team rules, he will miss the first two games of the regular season. Don't go thinking that will have any sort of impact on our ability to feel strongly about him. Scottie Wilbekin missed the first five games of last season for the Gators, and he was still one of the most talked about players in the country.
Why we hate him: The man played all of 87 minutes last season, but more has been written about him this offseason than has been written about 99 percent of the other D-I players across the nation.
We made the comparison that Caris LeVert could be getting the Mitch McGary stigma, but it's really Walker who is receiving that treatment.
McGary played rather sparingly during the 2012-13 season, but we absolutely loved what we saw at the end of the season—so much so that we wouldn't stop talking about him for seven straight months. Likewise, Walker's finest hour came in the Sweet 16 against UCLA when we finally got a chance to see that caged bird fly.
Unlike McGary, though, we were expecting the world of Walker long before he showed what he was capable of at the college level. For the first three months of the season, Florida fans finished every thought about their team with, "And just wait until Walker becomes eligible."
In addition to that ridiculous amount of hype, many will dislike him simply because he has now been suspended or ineligible at the outset of two consecutive seasons.
Last year, it was because of academics. This year, who knows? Regardless, it doesn't reflect well on his public persona that he can't seem to buckle down well enough to put his natural talents to good use.
Center: Jahlil Okafor, Duke
Why we love him: In a season that figures to be dominated by big men, Okafor just might be the biggest and baddest of them all.
(Well, actually Mamadou N'Diaye is the biggest, but just go with it.)
For as long as we can remember, Okafor has been nearly unanimously regarded as the best player in the freshmen class of 2014.
His game won't be as flashy as Chris Walker's. Nor will it be as hopelessly unstoppable as Shaquille O'Neal's used to be. But Okafor might be the most polished big man to play college ball in the past decade—freshman or not.
In short, we'll love him because his skills command our respect.
Why we hate him: You mean aside from the fact that he's the most important piece on the most hated team in the country?
How's this?
It's going to be Wiggins/Parker mania all over again.
Okafor has already been heralded by virtually everyone as the No. 1 pick in the 2015 NBA draft. Therefore, he has officially become the top target of constructive/destructive criticism from thousands of people who think their opinion on the subject matters.
Every move he makes, every breath he takes, we'll be watching him.
After a little while, it gets old. Maybe we won't actively be rooting against him, but good luck making it through the end of December without rolling your eyes every time a commentator, blogger, sideline reporter or sports news anchor starts talking about what each box score means for his NBA future.
It'll be even worse if someone like Cliff Alexander, Karl Towns Jr. or Stanley Johnson rises up to make a run at the No. 1 draft pick that was handed to Okafor on a silver platter two years ago.
It's bad enough when SportsCenter anchors talk about a player to no end, but as soon as there's a debate to be had on PTI or First Take, pick a side and batten down the hatches.
Coach: Roy Williams, North Carolina
Why we love him: Before you start screaming for John Calipari in this spot, please note that he was the coach of last year's All-Lightning Rod team, and it was decided that there are to be no repeats (or hesitations).
In Calipari's absence, Williams feels like an adequate fit for the throne.
We love Williams because he coaches with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
Scary as it has been to occasionally see him drop to one knee to avoid passing out on the sideline, it's simultaneously admirable that he puts that much heart into his job without having it boil over into the types of things that put Bobby Knight and Mike Rice on our naughty list forever and ever.
We also love Williams because "Ol' Boy Roy" has enough of a southern drawl to come off as endearing, but not so much that it sounds like he's giving a post-race interview for NASCAR. Somehow, that accent just makes him seem more sincere than most.
Most of all, though, we love Williams because he has been one of the most successful coaches at two of the most successful programs in college basketball history.
In 26 seasons between Kansas and North Carolina, Williams has won 79.2 percent of the games he has coached. He ranks eighth all time in that category. He has been to seven Final Fours and won two national championships while only missing the tournament twice in his career.
At a certain point, we just come to love coaches who consistently win.
Why we hate him: Williams has had an excellent 26 seasons, but he has had a disastrous 18 months dating back to last summer.
It began in June 2013 with the first P.J. Hairston arrest. If the media circus surrounding Hairston for the next seven months had been the only issue at North Carolina, Williams would still be a saint in our minds.
But then Leslie McDonald was ineligible to start the season because of impermissible benefits. Five days before McDonald was reinstated, former Tar Heel Will Graves was busted for drugs in a home owned by Williams.
This summer, however, was most damaging of all. It started with Rashad McCants' claims that he took fake classes to remain eligible, Williams knew and UNC gave him hush money. Months later, the Wainstein report is all anyone can talk about these days when it comes to UNC basketball.
Williams can win games, but at what cost?
We'll probably never fully know to what degree Williams was aware of the paper classes, but we do know it's something that will hang like a cloud of shame over UNC for a while to come. Even if he was an innocent, naive bystander, Williams had the misfortune of being the head coach while it was happening.
He may not take the fall and get fired, but he sure is the one taking the brunt of the media's blame right now. Unless something suddenly comes out to clear his name of any wrongdoing (or not enough "rightdoing"), Williams might be the most vilified coach in the country.
Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @kerrancejames.
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