Blue Blood - does Florida qualify? | Page 4 | The Boneyard

Blue Blood - does Florida qualify?

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UConn - 6 championship game appearances with 6 victories - all in the modern/expanded era
Until someone else comes close to that then lets talk (I know UCLA in the 60s)
UConn is the model of consistency in THE most important contest
That's Blueblood stuff
 
Lafayette said:
Weird that anyone can put UCLA as a blue blood but does not see that the field was like 18-24 teams for some of theirs and barely expanded for the bulk.

1964!

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UCLA so hard to qualify given their run was pre-modern, but not that long before. It was so impressive, it's hard to discount, having icons like Wooden, Lou, Big Red. They have Pawley, the unis, a NC in the 90s along with other F4's. I suppose they're more like Indiana in some ways, but have show more success recently. They have a F4 as recently as 2021, and made 3 in a row from 2006-2008. I'd put them in based on the aggregate and brand.
 
RuffRuff said:
UCLA so hard to qualify given their run was pre-modern, but not that long before. It was so impressive, it's hard to discount, having icons like Wooden, Lou, Big Red. They have Pawley, the unis, a NC in the 90s along with other F4's. I suppose they're more like Indiana in some ways, but have show more success recently. They have a F4 as recently as 2021, and made 3 in a row from 2006-2008. I'd put them in based on the aggregate and brand.
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Agree but we got to Elite 8 in ‘64 before it was call that I guess when it expanded the name made sense.

In all things there are “golden ages” and “silver ages” like comic books and baseball.

Guess in college hoops they don’t want that so UCLA was king until Uncle Geno got 12 in the modern era.

So persistence is counting and nattys count but for teams it’s different than players else Robert Horry (Big shot Bob) would be the goat with 7 himself.

However this plays out this season this thread should not be archived as a means to say “who was right and who was just guessing”.
 
Lafayette said:
Agree but we got to Elite 8 in ‘64 before it was call that I guess when it expanded the name made sense.

In all things there are “golden ages” and “silver ages” like comic books and baseball.

Guess in college hoops they don’t want that so UCLA was king until Uncle Geno got 12 in the modern era.

So persistence is counting and nattys count but for teams it’s different than players else Robert Horry (Big shot Bob) would be the goat with 7 himself.

However this plays out this season this thread should not be archived as a means to say “who was right and who was just guessing”.
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UCLA's championships are really in the gray area. I deeply discount the pre-1966 championships because the NIT was the more prestigious tournament on the east coast until the late 60's, and because many colleges had official or unofficial limits on African American players. UCLA's run mostly post-dates both those things, but not completely, and not by so much that those things were no longer a factor. The tournament's set up was regionalized which gave UCLA a huge advantage, which attracted top talent. Wooden was also a massive cheater. UCLA stopped dominating when the NCAA de-regionalized the tournament, showing a clear cause and effect.
 
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bendm said:
b/c then i'd have to include Michigan. these are the objective modern era bball rankings, which began in 1975 when the tourney expanded to 32. the criteria for inclusion is reaching a Final and the values for each round are based on the fibonacci sequence, starting with 1. A school like UConn that's had most of its success post-1985 when the tourney expanded to 64 gets dinged but so does a school like UCLA which had most of its success pre-1975. in other words, it's a balance of past and present.

Rank 1975+SchoolBidsx1Sweet 16x2Elite 8x3Final 4x5Finalx8Champx13Total
1Duke42423060216315771080565387
2UNC4646316222661575972565386
3UK4242306022561155756452321
4KU4343244816481050648339276
5UConn272717341236735648678258
6Lville363621421236840324339217
7UCLA383823461133840432226215
8MSU363620401339945324226210
9IU39391836824525432339195
10UF252512241030630432339180
11UM272715301030630648113178
12Nova313113261030525324339175
13Cuse37372142824630324113170
14Zona383821421133420216113162
15Gtown30301122824420324113133
15Ark32321428824420216113133
17UVA2626102072142018113108
18UH161691861852532400101
19Zags272714286182102160099
20UMD30301428392101811398
21Marq282891841221021611397
22UNLV202010205154201811396
23NCSt21218164122101811380
24Baylor141451039151811359
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I'm enjoying the ride following the mens and women's bb programs. Other than a possible recruit wanting to come to UConn because of the hype I couldn't care less about these debates.

However I do have a question as to the valuations given for each category. Shouldn't the values reflect the number of teams that make it into the category. Using the post 85 numbers 64 teams make it into the tourney and are given one point. Why aren't teams that get into the rd of 32 given 2 pts, teams making it into the Sweet 16 given 4 points, teams making it into the round of 8 get 8 points, teams that make it into the final four get 16 points and the champions get 64 points. Do the same math for 75-85 where everything is factored with 32 pts for winning. And go back to 1939 and factor things dependent on total numbers of teams that were involved. Take the aggregate and come up with the numbers. Then there is no need to compromise.

All six of our NCs would garner 64 pts each whereas those championships prior to 85 would get less depending on the numbers entering the tournament.
 
I would say that I don’t think blue bloods is necessarily defined by championships. It comes from something else. In fact for a number of years until the 70s you could make a case that the NIT was the more prestigious tournament. It was absolutely the more competitive one. And it wasn’t uncommon for teams to decline NCAA bids to play in the NIT or the other way around because they thought they had a better shot in the NCAA even. And the NCAA was pretty limited in who got selected. Conference champs and a few at large teams since many especially in the northeast were not in leagues. So teams didn’t play in the NCAA tournament by choice or because they finished second in their league or even tied for first but lost out by conference rule. At least one had a rule that in case of a tie the team who hadn’t been there the longest got selected. We tend to see the NCAA tournament from 1956 as comparable to 2025. It wasn’t.

But blue blood isn’t just who won the most championships. It applies to teams that helped establish the game and define it over time. So Florida? Nah. Kansas and Kentucky absolutely. UNC and Duke, Yes. UConn? Maybe since we were one of the programs that helped define college basketball in New England along with Holy Cross, PC and Rhode Island. We kept at it. They didn’t. Syracuse is a little like us. Deep roots in the northeast. Long term success. Indiana, yes I think so. Ohio State? Please don’t be silly.
 
freescooter said:
I would say that I don’t think blue bloods is necessarily defined by championships. It comes from something else. In fact for a number of years until the 70s you could make a case that the NIT was the more prestigious tournament. It was absolutely the more competitive one. And it wasn’t uncommon for teams to decline NCAA bids to play in the NIT or the other way around because they thought they had a better shot in the NCAA even. And the NCAA was pretty limited in who got selected. Conference champs and a few at large teams since many especially in the northeast were not in leagues. So teams didn’t play in the NCAA tournament by choice or because they finished second in their league or even tied for first but lost out by conference rule. At least one had a rule that in case of a tie the team who hadn’t been there the longest got selected. We tend to see the NCAA tournament from 1956 as comparable to 2025. It wasn’t.

But blue blood isn’t just who won the most championships. It applies to teams that helped establish the game and define it over time. So Florida? Nah. Kansas and Kentucky absolutely. UNC and Duke, Yes. UConn? Maybe since we were one of the programs that helped define college basketball in New England along with Holy Cross, PC and Rhode Island. We kept at it. They didn’t. Syracuse is a little like us. Deep roots in the northeast. Long term success. Indiana, yes I think so. Ohio State? Please don’t be silly.
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This is highly subjective - I do think a BB is the combination of objective data plus subjectivity on the more qualitative aspects. A team has to have felt like it's etched in place in history, and at this point post dominant B2B, across 4 decades of NC's, it fits the bill.
 
ctchamps said:
However I do have a question as to the valuations given for each category. Shouldn't the values reflect the number of teams that make it into the category
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Never seen it done like that but I kinda like it.
 
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TheChamps990411 said:
Kansas is the gatekeeper with 4. Tie them and youre in the discusssion, surpass them and youre in. It makes sense in my mind so dont ask.
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Idk KU was still a blue blood with 3. We tied them in 2011 and passed them in 2014 (Then they tied us in 2022) yet we didn’t become a BB until we got 6 in 2024. Rigged.
 
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auror said:
Duke does have UNC/UCLA/Kentucky history to them as long as you're not strictly talking about titles. "Some final fours" is a funny way of saying 8 final fours before 1991 (which is still more than UConn has as a program now). They literally lost to UCLA and UK in title games in the 60s and 70s. They have more wins overall as a program than UCLA. UConn has like 500 less. They're 5th in tournament appearances, and the ones above them are all the names you'd expect (UK, Kansas, UCLA, UNC). They were anointed without fanfare because they already fit all the aspects. We're 14th in bids. They're 4th in Sweet 16s (UK, UNC, UCLA, then them), we're 12th.
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Duke is a private school - the economics change the funding formulas.
 
We really need to stop caring about this. Florida is easily a top 10 program in the modern era.

I will grant some respect to teams that were good back in the early days, good most of the time since and are still good now, but that's really only Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina. Duke has a fair case as well as @auror points out. Some teams with history, like the orange Canadians, haven't maintained success. Nor has UCLA or Indiana.
 
bendm said:
Idk KU was still a blue blood with 3. We tied them in 2011 and passed them in 2014 (Then they tied us in 2022) yet we didn’t become a BB until we got 6 in 2024. Rigged.
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Anyone questioning Kansas as a blue blood. Knows nothing about college basketball. They have been a power since the game began. Before there even was an NCAA tournament, Kansas was one of the nationally recognized programs. They have had a team in the final four in every decade except the 1960s since the NCAA tournament began. They won two Helms titles in the 1920s pre NCAA. There last Championship was 2022.

To get back to the original question though, you aren’t a blue blood because you wo 2 titles a 15 years ago then another one.
 
freescooter said:
Anyone questioning Kansas as a blue blood. Knows nothing about college basketball. They have been a power since the game began. Before there even was an NCAA tournament, Kansas was one of the nationally recognized programs. They have had a team in the final four in every decade except the 1960s since the NCAA tournament began. They won two Helms titles in the 1920s pre NCAA. There last Championship was 2022.

To get back to the original question though, you aren’t a blue blood because you wo 2 titles a 15 years ago then another one.
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major land grant colleges have been around so long the alum and donations are massive. The haves can afford it which is chalk.
 
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freescooter said:
Anyone questioning Kansas as a blue blood. Knows nothing about college basketball. They have been a power since the game began. Before there even was an NCAA tournament, Kansas was one of the nationally recognized programs. They have had a team in the final four in every decade except the 1960s since the NCAA tournament began. They won two Helms titles in the 1920s pre NCAA. There last Championship was 2022.

To get back to the original question though, you aren’t a blue blood because you wo 2 titles a 15 years ago then another one.
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Blue bloods seems to derive from morrill land grant act which gave UCLA, KU, UK, etc land for university property and dates back to the 1860s. UConn gained land grant status after the Yale dispute and the Storrs Bros pushed it thru.

Hence there is the OGs under Morrill that seems to want to be the blue bloods for how long they have existed and have been competitive while they tend to have UConn not in that list as we came somewhat after.

So overall this is us vs them kind of argument that largely sits on Morrill but due to expansion and “the modern era” it starts to erode that argument.
 
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Blue bloods never stop being one, see the Vanderbilts as an example. So UCLA will always be one, albeit a faded one. UConn is almost over the “new money” hump, hell I think consensus after the last few years is we are part of the club. It’s a combination of lots of factors but in the end it’s what your peers and the public believe more than anything. Teams like Nova are part of an upper tier but, like Florida, IMO are barely approaching new money territory let alone the hallowed halls.
 
UConn is the JP Morgan of college basketball. Ruthless Titan but has saved the BE Conference from demise many times over!!
 
IndyLives said:
UConn is the JP Morgan of college basketball. Ruthless Titan but has saved the BE Conference from demise many times over!!
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I am a UConn former student athlete and working at JP Morgan. How ironic to that post.
 
freescooter said:
Anyone questioning Kansas as a blue blood. Knows nothing about college basketball. They have been a power since the game began. Before there even was an NCAA tournament, Kansas was one of the nationally recognized programs. They have had a team in the final four in every decade except the 1960s since the NCAA tournament began. They won two Helms titles in the 1920s pre NCAA. There last Championship was 2022.

To get back to the original question though, you aren’t a blue blood because you wo 2 titles a 15 years ago then another one.
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I don't think anyone questioned them. As I've said a few times, the fans are rather proud of their historic contribution to the sport of college basketball. Not only what KU has done on the court, but the state and program under Phog Allen producing both Dean Smith and Adolph Rupp, leading to the other two most obvious "blue bloods". They still shouldn't count the Helms as titles though.
 
Lafayette said:
Blue bloods seems to derive from morrill land grant act which gave UCLA, KU, UK, etc land for university property and dates back to the 1860s. UConn gained land grant status after the Yale dispute and the Storrs Bros pushed it thru.

Hence there is the OGs under Morrill that seems to want to be the blue bloods for how long they have existed and have been competitive while they tend to have UConn not in that list as we came somewhat after.

So overall this is us vs them kind of argument that largely sits on Morrill but due to expansion and “the modern era” it starts to erode that argument.
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We also didn’t compete at the same level. UConn was never willing to seriously challenge Yale athletically until the 1980s. We and the rest of the Yankee Conference schools didn’t play D1 football because the Ivies de-emphasized athletics in the 1950s so the thinking went we couldn’t have major programs either.
 
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freescooter said:
Anyone questioning Kansas as a blue blood. Knows nothing about college basketball. They have been a power since the game began. Before there even was an NCAA tournament, Kansas was one of the nationally recognized programs. They have had a team in the final four in every decade except the 1960s since the NCAA tournament began. They won two Helms titles in the 1920s pre NCAA. There last Championship was 2022.

To get back to the original question though, you aren’t a blue blood because you wo 2 titles a 15 years ago then another one.
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No one is questioning KU as a blue blood.
 
freescooter said:
We also didn’t compete at the same level. UConn was never willing to seriously challenge Yale athletically until the 1980s. We and the rest of the Yankee Conference schools didn’t play D1 football because the Ivies de-emphasized athletics in the 1950s so the thinking went we couldn’t have major programs either.
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Titles before UTEP’s deserve asterisks.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Titles before UTEP’s deserve asterisks.
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Kansas actually sort of does that. When you look at their records they distinguish them by the size of the NCAA tournament. As I recall they distinguish between 8, 16 and 32 teams. Those are upper limits since I think there were years when it was 12 and 14 teams.

And I agree that Helms titles aren’t comparable. I just referenced them to show tha Kansas was considered a major power in the sport before the NCAA held its tournament.
 
HuskyHawk said:
We really need to stop caring about this. Florida is easily a top 10 program in the modern era.

I will grant some respect to teams that were good back in the early days, good most of the time since and are still good now, but that's really only Kansas, Kentucky and North Carolina. Duke has a fair case as well as @auror points out. Some teams with history, like the orange Canadians, haven't maintained success. Nor has UCLA or Indiana.
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I feel as if the Canadiens don't belong in this conversation whatsoever.

For me "Blue Bloods", essentially mean the equivalent of "old money." Once you are in the club, you're in. For me, national championships are an indispensable part of the test. I like the comment above that says four national championships get you in the conversation and five put you in the club. I would also add some sort of "sustained excellence" standard where championships needed to be won in more than one decade, preferably over at least three decades.
 
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