Are we officially a blue blood?

[Palatine]

Landing the #1 recruit in the country coming off the national championship is not a feat performed by pretenders.

 

[bobbygt]

I'd say a new blue blood, but still not a traditional one. Uconn is the best of the second tier, imo.

Based on number of titles, final four appearances, modern-day relevance, and nba representation, I'd say the tiers go like this:

tier 1
unc
duke
uk
ku
ucla
indiana

tier 2
uconn
msu
UL
Florida

tier 3
Cuse
OSU
Zona
Arkansas
Gtown
Nova
Cincy
Michigan
NC State
Maryland

 

[Palatine]

Based on modern day relevance, it's hard to include Indiana.

 

[Deepster]

Just curious, why would you include Indiana in Tier 1 but not UConn?

 

[bobbygt]

Just curious, why would you include Indiana in Tier 1 but not UConn?

I think one's reputation comes from the number of titles and FF appearances. Indiana has 5 titles and 8 . Those numbers alone should put them in tier 1, although they are easily the weakest of the bunch.

 

[Scot-e]

Blue Blood does not mean you have had to do anything in recent years. Look at all the blue bloods in CT- living in huge homes and living off money their grand dad made (not that there is anything wrong with that). Our success has happened in a short period of time- being a blue blood to me means being at that level in the public eye over a long period of time.

I would say we are an elite program- but not a blue blood- but that is just MHO.

 

[Waquoit]

We are in the same tier as Indiana. Ahead of MSU and way ahead of UL and Florida. Maybe 1-AA. Another NC sends us into the stratosphere.

 

[bobbygt]

We are in the same tier as Indiana. Ahead of MSU and way ahead of UL and Florida. Maybe 1-AA. Another NC sends us into the stratosphere.

I don't think uconn is way ahead of Florida (recent success) or UL (historically).

 

[NHUConnfan]

Yeah, unless UConn wins back to back, I'm not going to say UConn is way ahead of Florida. What they did a few years ago is not something to disregard.

 

[UCHuskies08]

3>2

 

[Pudge]

Most of Florida's basketball history is horrid. So ... I really object to throwing them in that category. You might as well match them with UNLV.

UConn is carving new ground. I'm not going to say that IU doesn't belong: they do. Far beyond Bobby Knight, the Hoosiers were something going back to the 40s & 50s. That is valid. And like UCLA, they have the resources & tradition to come back; one good program coach. We are ahead of UL. They have been consistently good ... but rarely on top. Denny Crum's era was long & solid; Pitino has them at a pretty high level.

Calhoun, though, needs to be suceeded by a success. That's when we really get to the elevated status.

 

[MTHusky]

What was Duke before K$%#^&$%ski?

 

[Pudge]

Same as they ever were ...

A rich white school in the middle of hayseed supported by Tobacco money.

 

[Ts5034]

Uconn has won just about as many games as anybody over the last 25 yrs. Even with 3 national championships and 7 BE tournament championships do you think uconn is viewed as a second tier program now because they only have 4 final fours?

 

[brasssbonanzaa]

Florida's success is more or less isolated to those two years. Yes, they made it on a whim to the final in 2000, but so did Georgia Tech in 2004. Florida is not tier two, probably tier three. Indiana deserves to be tier one, because there's too much to ignore, and with that many titles, only two programs have more, you can't not put them there. Right now, I'd leave us just behind the cream of the crop, but very, very close now. Here's how I'd put it:

Tier 1:
UCLA
UK
UNC
Duke
Indiana
KU

Tier 2:
UConn
MSU
Syracuse - too many program wins to be lower

Tier 3:
Lots here:
UL
Florida
OSU
Cincinnati
NC State
Temple and St. John's for their overall wins

You could make arguments for a lot more here, but I put every team with multiple titles, save USF because they've really done nothing other than the Bill Russel years.

 

[Waquoit]

Yeah, unless UConn wins back to back, I'm not going to say UConn is way ahead of Florida. What they did a few years ago is not something to disregard.

They won twice with the same team. That's awesome. UConn won thrice with 3 different teams and was close with at least 3 others. Florida had Da Meat Hook. UConn by quite a margin.

 

[bobbygt]

Florida's success is more or less isolated to those two years. Yes, they made it on a whim to the final in 2000, but so did Georgia Tech in 2004. Florida is not tier two, probably tier three. Indiana deserves to be tier one, because there's too much to ignore, and with that many titles, only two programs have more, you can't not put them there. Right now, I'd leave us just behind the cream of the crop, but very, very close now. Here's how I'd put it:

Tier 1:
UCLA
UK
UNC
Duke
Indiana
KU

Tier 2:
UConn
MSU
Syracuse - too many program wins to be lower

Tier 3:
Lots here:
UL
Florida
OSU
Cincinnati
NC State
Temple and St. John's for their overall wins

You could make arguments for a lot more here, but I put every team with multiple titles, save USF because they've really done nothing other than the Bill Russel years.

I don't see how you can put Cuse in over Louisville. Program wins are important as are conference titles, which puts Syracuse up there, but they are lacking in Final Fours and Championships.

Louisville has 2 NCs and 8 to Syracuse's 1NC and 4 . UL has more ncaa wins.

 

[ctchamps]

Anyone else bleed Husky blue besides me? If so it would make it official that we are blue blooded.

 

[intlzncster]

What was Duke before K$%#^&$%ski?

While not having any NCs, they had been to 4 FF and 2 Championship Games prior to Coach K arriving.

Before K, they were also 10x conference champions and 10x conference tournament champions.

Nothing to sneeze at.

 

[husky99]

who cares, sorry. seems elitist

 

[ibleedhuskyblue]

Anyone else bleed Husky blue besides me? If so it would make it official that we are blue blooded.

uh......me

 

[ctchamps]

uh......me

That's it. Now it's official.

 

[Scoe]

Florida definetly gets credit for winning back to back national titles but if Emeka and Ben had returned for their senior years im pretty sure we would repeat. If we keep winning, Ray getting into the HOF, getting a new practice facility and life after JC will definetly help us toward Blue Blood status, it all comes with time. I would say we are.

 

[ConnHuskBask]

I think by definition you can't be considered a 'Blue Blood' unless you have a history of major national success that spans decades and multiple eras.

That's not to say we aren't as 'Elite' as those schools, but we lack any real significant history beyond 25 years ago or so.

End of the day it's all just semantics anyways. Ask any of those schools outside of UNC, or Duke if they would 100% trade their past 25 years for ours and the answer would be yes.

 

[jleves]

One more JC Championship and a couple of final fours in the next 6 or 7 years after that with hopefully a championship vaults us ahead of many programs. Lot's of people say but Duke has only done it under Coach K. But they've been doing it longer and have 10 final fours plus an extra championship - that's more than enough to put them up there. We have our feet on the top stop of the ladder with our fingers pulling up on the rafters, but we haven't quite cleared the threshold. No reason to think we won't and in 10 years time, some of the current blue bloods could be thinking how did they get up there? I'd love to see 5 NCs, 7 final fours by 2018 or so.