The Golden Gophers have made the top 10 – just not in a ranking anyone can be proud of.

The football or basketball teams would love a top-10 spot, but the married men and women with an "umn.edu" email address registered on Ashley Madison, a website for cheating spouses, beat them to it.

Email addresses associated with the University of Minnesota system ranked No. 8 of all ".edu" addresses found after the Ashley Madison site was recently hacked, according to research done by Inside Higher Ed. The group downloaded the database provided by the hackers of Ashley Madison and found Michigan State University to be the No. 1 school, with 696 registered email addresses. The Minnesota system had 485.

The website — whose slogan is "Life is short. Have an affair" — is marketed to people looking for extramarital relationships. It purports to have about 39 million members, and more than 15,000 accounts were hosted by government agencies or the military, according to the Hill.

There are plenty of caveats when sorting through the data released – including the fact Ashley Madison doesn't verify addresses, and Minnesota is one of many schools that offer ".edu" addresses to alumni – but Insider Higher Ed felt strong enough about their research to publish a top-10 list. Here it is, Gophers fans:

1.Michigan State University: 696
2.Pennsylvania State University:679
3.Kent State University:653
4.Virginia Tech:561
5.Ivy Tech Community College:560
6.Virginia Community Colleges:541
7.Ohio State University:487
8.University of Minnesota:485
9.University of Michigan:450
10.New York University:438

STAR TRIBUNE STAFF