10 Kansas basketball players the Jayhawks rivals loved to hate the most

7. Silvio De Sousa (2017-2020)

It is hard to call De Sousa a hated player by KU’s rivals. Ultimately, he never contributed enough to the team for other schools to bat an eye at him. However, the Jayhawks’ rivals love to mention the FBI corruption probe that Kansas is involved in — and Silvio was in the middle of all the investigations.

Multiple payments were offered to De Sousa’s family from Kansas and Maryland, but he eventually committed to the Jayhawks. He graduated high school early and joined the team in the middle of January, which raised questions from other universities. Everything about the situation was sketchy.

If his involvement in the investigation was not enough, he was the focal point of one of college basketball’s most ferocious brawls of all time. As time winded down in a regular season game versus Kansas State, tensions flared, and players started pushing each other to the photographers’ area.

A minor scuffle turned into an all-out fistfight, and what ensued afterward is a core memory of the Kansas-Kansas State rivalry — the infamous chair photo.

We might not see a fight like that again in Kansas basketball history. After watching him nearly demolish one of its school’s players, it is hard not for K-State fans to hold ill will toward De Sousa. However, Wildcat enthusiasts will always be able to crack jokes about KU’s corruption for a player that supplied practically nothing to the program.