ESPN Jeff Borzello - Article Is UConn a blue blood ? | Page 2 | The Boneyard

ESPN Jeff Borzello - Article Is UConn a blue blood ?

5 Championship and 1 Final Four banner. Yes
 
The biggest complaint people seem to have most often is that there have been too many down years and not enough strong years outside the national championships... Hurley will take care of that.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Yeah, it's fair to argue over the criteria. I would suggest like:

10 points for championship
6 points for Final Four
3 points for Sweet 16
1 point for NCAAT appearance
3 points for conference championship
3 points for top 10 in the polls for 4+ weeks during the season
2 points per NCAA 1st team All-American
2 points per NBA lottery pick

and have it from 1985 to present (sorry, UCLA).

Something like that, which rewards titles, sustained excellence, being the top dog in conference, and individual player cachet.
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I honestly think there's value to the older titles, they should just be worth less.

I also think there's value to overall wins, to the NIT when it was the preeminent tournament, and (sigh) to the Helms. Just not as much as are national championships.

Blue Blood is prestige and longevity. Those old things fade, but they aren't really ever gone. History matters.
 
Leebo said:
The biggest complaint people seem to have most often is that there have been too many down years and not enough strong years outside the national championships... Hurley will take care of that.
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They also value things that we would never value: most total victories, for instance.

No amount of national championships will change that until the kids watching the 1999 national championship are old or dead.

Which is why the designation is essentially meaningless.
 
tzznandrew said:
They also value things that we would never value: most total victories, for instance.

No amount of national championships will change that until the kids watching the 1999 national championship are old or dead.

Which is why the designation is essentially meaningless.
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Disagree on that one. The Yankees have sucked for decades. They are still the Yankees. Total wins means a lot. Consecutive trips to the tournament means a lot. Helms? Nah, that doesn't mean anything. There's room to balance history of excellence in the sport with "what have you done lately. Both matter. Some, like Indiana and to some extent UCLA fail on the "lately" and hit on "history". KU, Duke, UK and UNC hit on both. UConn hits on "lately" and has now been doing it long enough that I think we're being perceived as having enough history too.
 
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UConn didn’t leave the big east.

We’ve gone to the tourney 5 out of 9 seasons since 2012.
 
They can have their shade of blue dook, Carolina, Kentucky etc.....but we bleed blue.....and we have those chips on our shoulder, all five of them.

National Championship Sport GIF by NCAA March Madness
 
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Leebo said:
The biggest complaint people seem to have most often is that there have been too many down years and not enough strong years outside the national championships... Hurley will take care of that.
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No other blue blood has had to survive a concerted effort to destroy it. To just ignore the CR situation is dishonest. We should get extra credit for the perseverance.
 
tzznandrew said:
I honestly think there's value to the older titles, they should just be worth less.

I also think there's value to overall wins, to the NIT when it was the preeminent tournament, and (sigh) to the Helms. Just not as much as are national championships.

Blue Blood is prestige and longevity. Those old things fade, but they aren't really ever gone. History matters.
Expand ...
Agree regarding the NIT. Helms championships are nonsense and always have been. UCF put up a national champion banner when it was undefeated and the rest of college sports laughed at them. The rest of college sports should be laughing at "Helms bakery championships."
 
Waquoit said:
No other blue blood has had to survive a concerted effort to destroy it. To just ignore the CR situation is dishonest. We should get extra credit for the perseverance.
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Multiple coaches is more impressive. Multiple titles from multiple coaches is a short list. Kentucky, Kansas, UConn, UNC, Indiana, Villanova, UCLA, NC State, Michigan State. I'm leaving Louisville out since Pitino's was vacated.

The list to do it with three 3 coaches (all the way back to 1939) is Kentucky, UConn, Kansas, UNC.
 
Worth reading. I wanted to quibble with the points system they used to rank the eight teams considered in their "blue blood analysis" but can't really complain. It gives more credit to those who consistently have won their leagues or league championships while we received credit for NC's won. What pushed us down the list was the dismal record during the Ollie downfall years and Dan Hurley's first couple years along with our inability to get past the first round of the tournament in Dan Hurley's first two tournament years.
Marat said:
www.espn.com

With five national championships in 25 years, is UConn a blue blood?

Over the past generation, the Huskies' success -- under three different coaches -- is undeniable. But is it enough to be considered a blue blood?
www.espn.com www.espn.com

Haven't read it yet... looks long.
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Leebo said:
The biggest complaint people seem to have most often is that there have been too many down years and not enough strong years outside the national championships... Hurley will take care of that.
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This just isn’t true. Outside of a couple nit bids with Calhoun because the teams were depleted to the NBA, he always made deep runs. It’s the end of the Ollie run that really sticks out.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Yeah, it's fair to argue over the criteria. I would suggest like:

10 points for championship
6 points for Final Four
3 points for Sweet 16
1 point for NCAAT appearance
3 points for conference championship
3 points for top 10 in the polls for 4+ weeks during the season
2 points per NCAA 1st team All-American
2 points per NBA lottery pick

and have it from 1985 to present (sorry, UCLA).

Something like that, which rewards titles, sustained excellence, being the top dog in conference, and individual player cachet.
Expand ...
But, for you to be a blue blood, you (yes you) need to use your system and score the teams!:rolleyes:
Oops, didn't see 82's comment on that till after I posted this.
 
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Since the term has no real definition, there's no satisfactory way to answer the question. Sometimes you see people claiming a team with five titles hasn't done enough. Other times you see story about struggling blue bloods and they're talking about, like, Wisconsin or Gonzaga. It's all semantics
 
superjohn said:
I'm so sick of hearing/reading about this, it's insulting. We're the best program of the past 25 years, it would be like debating whether Apple is worthy of being compared to/sharing a table with General Electric.
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That's a great way of putting it. If that doesn't give you perspective, nothing will.
 
superjohn said:
If we keep winning national championships they'll change the criteria to make it that national championships don't count.
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Unless, of course, you win 7 in a row................
 
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A very good article. Yes its long but worth the read.

Frankly I don't care if we are called blue bloods or not. Kentucky, Duke and the rest will always be protective of the "blue blood" status. God forbid anyone else be admitted to that lofty status.

I like the fact that UConn is a "blue collar" type program. Bring it every night, grind it out and just win. Recruit very good basketball players and make them better. Let the team play with a chip on its shoulder.

Its a shame the BE coaches give UConn so little respect after last season. Hopefully the all eat crow this season.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Five years ago, you could maybe make an argument that, well, they only won with one coach and the next guy won with his players, and then they fell off the map.

Now it's 3 different coaches. Like Emeka pointed out, it's in 4 different decades. On a championship basis, there's no argument.

The only argument you could make against us is inconsistency. Our non-title years over the last 15 years we've often been irrelevant, since 2009 only 1 Tournament win in non-title years (though the fact that we have 3 championships in that period makes that caveat look silly).

Edit: I didn't realize that in addition to having the most championships in the last 25 years, we also tied for the most Final Four appearances. That's pretty significant.
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If indiana and UCLA are still blue bloods then it makes the lack of success in non title years completely moot. Also im tired of this crap about since 1999. This program was elite for nearly a decade before that first title including a 5 year run with a recored of 139-33 with 2 sweet 16s and 2 elite 8s and 2 big east tournament titles in a brutal big east.
 
superjohn said:
I'm so sick of hearing/reading about this, it's insulting. We're the best program of the past 25 years, it would be like debating whether Apple is worthy of being compared to/sharing a table with General Electric.
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100% agree. Our program collects NC’s. Call it whatever you want.
 
Any of you watching the HBO series The Gilded Age?

It parallels this discussion. The new money in the 1870s - 1910s was much greater than the old money, but the new money had to fight to be accepted in high society.

I'd rather live in the bigger mansion with more servants and be snubbed by the old money folks.
 
Define "Blueblood".

That is always the argument other fanbases make. Blueblood means XYZ that excludes teams A, B and C. Without settling on a definition it is impossible to make a Yes or No statement.

I have heard UK fans talk about the only Bluebloods being UK, KU and UNC. So, yeah.
 
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Pretty strong statement tonight stiffarming a blue blood who we've historically struggled against, on the huge stage of our second home court.
 
Hurleyman216 said:
I love the quote from Boeheim about how impossible it was to do what we did in Storrs, CT…I mean it’s not like he was coaching in Los Angeles or some other resort town. Storrs, CT is like heaven compared to Syracuse, NY.
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Dee Rowe used to say it best "the miracle in Storrs".
 
jleves said:
Any of you watching the HBO series The Gilded Age?

It parallels this discussion. The new money in the 1870s - 1910s was much greater than the old money, but the new money had to fight to be accepted in high society.

I'd rather live in the bigger mansion with more servants and be snubbed by the old money folks.
Expand ...

I’m just glad UConn isn’t nouveau riche.
 
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