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ACC QUESTION of the WEEK : Is Virginia now a basketball blue-blood?
I wrote about the revocation of blue-blood status last week at College Basketball Today, so it is good to visit the other side of this topic: When does a blue-blood get created?
More precisely: Has Virginia attained blue-blood status?
It’s a very reasonable question.
Currently in the ACC, Duke, North Carolina and Louisville are the resident blue-bloods. Louisville hasn’t yet made a Final Four as an ACC member, but UL carried blue-blood status from the Big East and AAC. Syracuse? I would listen to arguments, but I could not pronounce the Orange a blue-blood with great confidence or conviction. What Virginia is doing comes closer to blue-blood standards… but I don’t think the Hoos are quite there.
First, let’s say this much: Everyone will have a different standard for blue-blood status… and therefore, blue-blood inclusion or exclusion. When does a school play its way OUT of blue-blood status? Everyone will disagree. When does a school play its way IN to the blue-blood club? Everyone will disagree.
I can only give my basic parameters: A blue-blood has to be expected to be great every year. This doesn’t mean a school MUST be great every year, only that the expectation must emerge on a relentlessly consistent basis.
A blue-blood must have at least one national championship. The more national championships a program has, the LESS its present-day performance matters in a larger context. If a school is sitting on a ton of national titles, any new emergence of top-tier performance solidifies blue-blood status. Schools with fewer national titles have to do more to maintain blue-blood status.
Here are some other general (and less binding) characteristics of blue-blood basketball programs:
A blue-blood regularly gets very high seeds in the NCAA Tournament — not occasionally, but with great consistency. A program can go through long droughts, but if it performs like a blue-blood, it will reach this standard. Indiana and UCLA obviously haven’t performed like blue-bloods recently, with a few select exceptions.
A blue-blood normally makes multiple Final Fours in a short period of time. This is the item where Virginia still has to do some work.
As great as Virginia has been the past six seasons, it has made only one Final Four in that time. What if Virginia doesn’t make another Final Four in the next three or four seasons? Would we want to give the blue-blood label — and all the prestige it confers upon its recipients — to Virginia?
I am close to awarding blue-blood status, but I would like to see at least another Final Four in the next two or three seasons. Then we can revisit.
If Virginia wins another national title as Villanova did last year, I would be happy to acknowledge that UVA is a blue-blood.
The constant flow of top seeds in ACC Tournaments; top-two seeds in NCAA Tournaments; and 30-win regular seasons (or at least 28-win seasons) forms an initial foundation for blue-bloods. Stacking Final Fours on top of those regular seasons, and then stacking national titles on top of those Final Fours, rapidly develops a blue-blood profile. Some programs — such as Arizona under Lute Olson — did not win a second national title, but they made so many NCAA Tournaments as high seeds and reached multiple Final Fours — four in 14 seasons, an average of one every 3.5 seasons — that they developed a blue-blood identity anyway.
Virginia isn’t a blue-blood now, but that could very easily change in the next two to three seasons.
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