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Message: [QUOTE="Towney007, post: 2966828, member: 5832"] I think programs go through up and downs, but if I were picking 10 programs that were bonafide blueblood schools - then it's absolutely Duke, North Carolina, UCLA, Kentucky and Kansas. I really don't care that UCLA has struggled a bit the past few years. They were still more dominant for longer than just about anyone. And actually dominant. Multiple, multi-year UConn women-esque national title runs. Not including them just gets you laughed at. I get more stuck on our standing than anyone else, tbh. Part of that is recency bias just because I still feel like childhood wasn't that long ago, even though i've been alive for the entire rise of the program. I guess I still have this underlying sense of us being this up and coming program/underdog team that I haven't been able to shake since childhood. And with the dip in the last few years, I feel like that's been reinforced in a weird way. But then you look at our resume and I mean - we were basically the best basketball program in the country from 2011-2011. Duke's really the only other team in the conversation there, maybe UNC - but certainly not Kentucky and while Kansas was really good - they weren't as good as we were. From 1990, we won four national titles, went to the Final Four five times, the elite eight 9 times, won the best basketball league in the country TEN times and won the conference tournament 8 times. That's NUTS when you think about it. And if we're basing UCLA's dominance over a 20 year period of time, then well - our 20 year period isn't that- but it isn't anything to sneeze at. And you also just have a ton of schools after that where it's really mixed. Like yeah, Indiana won a ton. Kinda similar trajectory to us, tbh - but when they faded they never QUITE got back to where they were in the late 70s-early 90s. But their name is also synonymous with college basketball. Syracuse as much as I hate them - have probably been a little more consistent than us, more final fours, but can't get the job done in the final. Villanova has a lot of national championships but have never been a truly consistent elite program ever, really. Louisville is a dark horse, too. three national titles, 10 final fours and save for a gap where they weren't truly elite in the 90s, they've been pretty consistent. Michigan State probably deserves to be in the conversation, too - w/ a resume similar to us with more final fours but fewer national championships. So I dunno - I feel like we're better than those guys, but still aren't quite the big five. I'm not mad about that or anything or blame it on anything other than the inferiority complex ingrained in me from the 90s. [/QUOTE]

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