Who Are the Worst Spelling Fans In College Basketball?
A college education usually portrays graduates with a heightened sense of knowledge in a particular field of study. However, when it comes to college basketball fans, you may be surprised to learn which conferences and teams have fans with the highest percentage of spelling mistakes in their comments on popular social media sites.
While calculating the spelling accuracy of college basketball fans isn’t as simple as obtaining a team’s three-point shooting percentage, we had fun reading thousands of comments from die-hard college hoopster fans from across the globe.
Follow along while we peek behind the curtain to find the worst spelling fans in college basketball.
Worst Spelling College Basketball Fans Ranked By Conference
- Independent 34.95%
- ACC 33.55%
- Southern 33.11%
- Mountain West 31.19%
- SEC 30.93%
- Big East 30.55%
- Big Ten 29.62%
- Big West 28.66%
- Conference USA 28.54%
- MEAC 28.49%
- A-10 28.38%
- Big South 28.29%
- West Coast 28.10%
- Missouri Valley 27.70%
- Horizon League 27.65%
- Pac-12 27.51%
- The Summit 27.08%
- Patriot League 26.89%
- Northeast 26.59%
- Big 12 26.40%
- Southland 26.33%
- MAC 26.23%
- Ivy League 26.20%
- MAAC 26.13%
- Ohio Valley 25.99%
- ASUN 25.81%
- America East 25.73%
- WAC 25.48%
- Sun Belt 25.42%
- Big Sky 24.92%
- The American 23.55%
- CAA 21.98%
- SWAC 17.41%
Independent Conference Leads In Percentage of Misspellings
Most Division I (D-I) college athletic teams compete in the same conference for all sports. A handful of schools play in different athletic conferences in major sports such as football and basketball. For example, Notre Dame’s men’s basketball team competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), while competing independently in football. Only two teams (Chicago State and Hartford) classify themselves as “Independent” for the 2022-23 D-I basketball season.
Call it unfair, but Hartford fans posted a comment mistake ratio of 34.94 %. Our stellar statisticians couldn’t find any comments from Chicago State fans. Maybe they spend more time commenting on hockey or ice sledding endeavors.
Atlantic Coast Conference Misspellers
College basketball fans are certainly more familiar with Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) teams, which include such hardwood powerhouses as North Carolina, Duke, North Carolina State, Clemson, Notre Dame, and Florida State.
Overall, the ACC had a 33.55% comment mistake ratio, misspelling an average of 3.20% of words. Topping the ACC conference standings is the University of Pittsburgh Panthers, followed closely by North Carolina State, with both teams’ fan comments north of 38%. Notre Dame and Duke fan comment misspelling errors hovered in the 30% range.
Southern Conference Spelling Skills
Here’s where we find some interesting stats. Not to be confused with the powerhouse Southeastern Conference (SEC), the fan base with the overall highest comment spelling mistake percentage belongs to The Citadel.
A premier military college, Citadel fans make an astounding 78.8% of spelling mistakes when railing on the Bulldog basketball program. However, let’s cut their fans a little slack, given the team finished the previous season with a 13-18 record and next-to-last in the Southern Conference standings.
Mountain West Spelling Errors
The Mountain West conference includes accomplished academic institutions such as the United State Air Force Academy. Hopefully, Falcon fans didn’t contribute to their conference’s poor spelling percentages, but that’s hardly the case. 40% of Air Force Academy fans made a spelling error when commenting on the team’s dismal 11-18 record.
Colorado State fans weren’t far behind, misspelling by hitting a 39% comment misspelling rate, with Boise State just over 37%
Southeastern Conference Spelling Accuracy
Of course, poking fun at the South is relatively typical, mainly since the Southeastern Conference (SEC) contains some of the most potent teams in college basketball.
Five of the SEC’s 14 teams are nationally ranked, including the Kentucky Wildcats (4), the Arkansas Razorbacks (10), the Tennessee Volunteers (11), the Auburn Tigers (15), and the Crimson Tide of Alabama (20).
The Louisiana State University (LSU) Tiger fans lead the SEC misspelling race with over 38% making a comment spelling error. Known for their academic achievements, you might think Vanderbilt fans would be the SEC’s best spellers, yet that’s hardly the case at 27.83 percent.
Big East Basketball Fan Spelling Blunders
The number five NCAA Division I conference with the worst spelling fans goes to the Big East. Creighton and Villanova (ranked 9th and 16th in pre-season polls) headline a conference comprised of DePaul, Georgetown, Marquette, and Seton Hall, all of whom have gained notoriety in the competitive world of college basketball.
Sitting atop the Big East, Connecticut fans led the league with 64.71% of comment spelling mistakes. Fortunately, DePaul fans kept the average down, with a 21.43% spelling error rate.
Big Ten Misspelled Fan Comments
Taking the sixth position as the college basketball conference with the worst spelling fan base belongs to the Big Ten. Rutgers University, who finished the 2021-22 season with a respectable 18-14 record, has a fan base that committed almost 42% of comment spelling errors. In second place is the Wisconsin Badgers at 35.25%.
The Hoosiers of Indiana come into the 2022-23 season ranked 13th, followed by number 22 Michigan and 23 Illinois. Thankfully, their fans didn’t break the 30% barrier when posting comments.
SWAC Wins the NCAA D-I Spelling Bee
With 33 D-I conferences in college basketball, finding the fans with the fewest errors takes time. Since we’re picking on a handful of conferences with poor spelling fan bases, it’s only fair to recognize the conference whose fans commit the smallest percentage of comment spelling errors.
Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) fans win this season’s spelling bee with only a 17.41% comment error rate. That could be because only four of the conference’s 12 teams were measured. Nonetheless, let’s tip our hat to Grambling State University, whose fans committed only a 14% error rate when ranting about Tiger basketball.
2022 AP Preseason D-I College Basketball Poll
The Associated Press (AP) released its 2022 Top 25 preseason poll for D-I men’s basketball teams in mid-October. Just for kicks, we compared the top 10 teams to their fans spelling rankings:
Ranking Fan Comment Misspelling Ratio
- North Carolina 35.14%
- Gonzaga 23.21%
- Houston 30.82%
- Kentucky 25.68%
- Kansas 23.62%
- Baylor 19.75%
- Duke 30.22%
- UCLA 26.98%
- Creighton 24.18%
- Arkansas 27.83%
Interestingly, the Tarheels capture the top spot as the nation’s premier preseason college basketball program, and a fan base with the most comment spelling mistakes.
Ditto Transcription Takes Spelling Mistakes Seriously
We trust you’ve had a much fun reading about basketball fan spelling mistakes as we have writing about them. When it comes to your transcription needs, Ditto Transcripts guarantees their accuracy, even offering a money-back guarantee for your complete satisfaction.
Avoid the risk of using inferior, foreign-based transcription services. Every Ditto transcriptionist undergoes a criminal background check. All are based in the U.S., and Ditto is HIPAA and CJIS compliant, with over a decade of experience producing transcripts for Fortune 500 companies, law enforcement agencies, law firms, and academic institutions.
Accuracy Always Counts
We pride ourselves in our 99% accuracy and 100% on-time guarantees at Ditto Transcripts. Many top companies, legal firms, educational institutions, and government entities use our industry leading transcription services.
Call Ditto Transcripts at (720) 287-3710 or email them at [email protected].
Methodology
We reviewed thousands of threads in Reddit forums for each NCAA Division I Basketball program and ran them through a magical computer program. After crunching the data, we computed the average number of misspelled words in fan comments, in addition to a few other stats.
