UConn Is In Rarefied Air As A True College Basketball Blue Blood

Certain buzzword-centric and wholly subjective conversations around sports make me cringe: Topics like Who’s The GOAT and most anything that uses the word “legacy.”

I acknowledge this up front because the label “blue blood” applied to college basketball programs can absolutely encroach on that Embrace Debate territory. But what can I say? It’s a conversation that, as a self-fashioned hoops history junkie, I love.

Not worry though, dear Press Break reader: Your humble author is not about to devolve into full-fledged Hot Take gimmickery. It’s my goal to never become the type to grouse about being unfollowed on social media.

However, this provides fitting segue for the matter at hand. In its current state, the Los Angeles Lakers franchise is a smoldering dumpster fire. An aging roster with LeBron James faces uncertainty, and a fan base that expects perennial championship competition won’t patiently await a rebuild.

Moreover, LeBron’s track record of meshing with coaches is hit-or-miss. All indicators suggest whomever steps in is destined for a short, miserable tenure.

To that end, Dan Hurley spurning the Lakers could be viewed as a decision of self-preservation. After turning around a program with its own passionate and demanding base in short order, Hurley has built cachet at UConn he simply couldn’t in Los Angeles.

What’s more, the track record of successful college coaches transitioning to the NBA ain’t exactly glowing.

Aside from the run of seven straight playoff appearances and an impressive transition into the front office for the Boston Celtics’ Brad Stevens — a coach against whom UConn won its third national championship — outstanding college leaders rarely make the move gracefully.

Still, with all that said…they’re the Lakers. They rival the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys and Manchester United among the most globally recognizable sports franchises. Win there, and you are immortalized among the most legendary names of basketball lore.

It’s for that reason normie media reporting on Dan Hurley’s decision to remain at UConn, including the hosts of Good Morning America, discussed it with utter exasperation.

Both the franchise’s prestige and the reported $70 million Lakers brass reportedly offered would seemingly be enough to compensate for the unfavorable conditions currently in the organization. However, Hurley has achieved something at UConn that few in the coaching profession can claim.

Dan Hurley elevated UConn basketball from powerhouse to the exclusive company of a blue blood.

When a friend texted me a simple, two-emoji message after Hurley declared his intention, I gleefully chuckled to myself.

We’d previously discussed UConn’s claim to being a college basketball blue blood, with my stance being that for as excellent as the program had been, its history wasn’t quite long enough to warrant the label.

See, “blue blood” implies an entrenched legacy. It comes from the cultural and economic distinction associated with Old Money; Gilded Age and post-Gilded Age tycoons like Vanderbilt, Ford, JP Morgan.

Before the 2023-24 season, my collection of blue bloods consisted of Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, UCLA and begrudgingly, Indiana. The Hoosiers have the weakest case for inclusion, having languished in mediocrity for most of the last 25 years.

But Indiana also boasts five national championships won over multiple generations, including one of the most noteworthy title runs in history with the perfect 1976 campaign. As important is that Indiana won a national championship in the modern era of the NCAA Tournament with its 1987 crown.

The Hoosiers’ house may be college basketball’s version of Miss Havisham’s dilapidated mansion, but they occupy the blue-blood neighborhood all the same.

So there’s the criteria as I see it:

• Multiple national championships won across multiple decades, with considerable bonus for titles that span both sides of the NCAA Tournament’s expansions to include at-large teams (1975) and to the full, 64-team format (1985).

• At least one championship claimed after ‘85.

• Multiple National Player of the Year honorees across generations.

Of the company listed above, Duke is the most nouveau riche. The Blue Devils boast some impressive history pre-dating Mike Krzyzewski’s tenure as head coach, most notably during Art Heyman’s run to 1963 National Player of the Year recognition and Final Four Most Outstanding Player honors in defeat.

But it wasn’t until 1991 that Duke broke through for a title. However, the Blue Devils claimed championships in three separate decades under Coach K during markedly different eras of college basketball.

Duke’s ability to both adapt to turbulent times with regard to its roster construction and its consistent ability to be in the national conversation for all of essentially 40 years overcomes its relatively thin lineage.

Similarly, foras excellent as UConn has been in modern times, the program’s emergence as a power began under the great Jim Calhoun at the start of the 1990s. Past UConn teams reached the NCAA Tournament, including a stretch of seven appearances from 1951 to 1960, but the Huskies made little noise in the postseason.

This past season’s title coming 25 years after UConn’s first, won in 1999 against Duke (coincidentally).

The Huskies spanning a quarter-century with championships is an impressive feat that just about mirrors Duke, which went 24 years between its 1991 run 2015, the last of its five Final Four crowns.

And, with 2024 marking six national championships for UConn, the Huskies surpassed the Blue Devils in total championships. Even before this past season when it reached six, UConn’s five could be argued was more impressive than Duke’s — or at least staked a stronger claim to it being a blue-blood program — in that they came under three separate head coaches.

That’s a claim neither UCLA (John Wooden, Jim Harrick) nor Indiana (Branch McCracken, Bob Knight) can make with regard to program sustainability. In Duke’s case, its success at the highest level has always been tied exclusively to Coach K.

Until a successor proves otherwise, the case can be made it isn’t Duke as a program that’s a blue blood so much as it provided a conduit for Krzyzewski’s excellence.

Of course, Coach K choosing Duke to be that vessel supports the Blue Devils’ claim to being blue bloods — especially since 20 years ago, Krzyzewski himself turned down the same job that Dan Hurley spurned.

Coach K passing on coaching the Lakers in 2004, when the franchise was just two years removed from a three-peat, solidified Duke’s prominence in the greater basketball universe. It also preceded Duke winning two more national championships, extending its run into a third decade.

UConn already solidified its claim to being a blue blood when it surpassed Duke with a sixth national championship won in April. But Dan Hurley’s decision to stay punctuated the declaration that the Huskies are basketball royalty of the highest order.