Is UConn a Blue Blood?
It has become one of the most hotly debated topics in sports.
On Monday, the University of Connecticut Huskies Men’s Basketball program won their second consecutive National Championship, their 6th all time. They are now tied with North Carolina for the third-most national championships in Men’s Division I College Basketball history. UConn’s recent run of excellence has led many to raise the question; are they one of the sport’s “blue bloods”? Kansas, Kentucky, Duke, and North Carolina have indisputably solidified their place in that elite club. Many consider UCLA and Indiana to be among the bunch as well, with the likes of Arizona, Michigan State, Louisville, and Syracuse mentioned from time-to-time, depending on how big you think the club should be. One program’s status in the blue blood conversation seems to be more hotly contested than the others; and that program happens to be this year’s National Champions. Proponents of UConn’s blue blood status cite their recent run of dominance as confirmatory evidence that the Huskies deserve the distinguished label, while purists are hard-pressed to accept anyone but the undisputed “big four” (plus maybe UCLA and Indiana for their history).
Let’s solve this argument once and for all with the numbers. I looked at dominance scores for each program in every year dating back to 1967 (to the trolls out there who will say “CoLleGe BaSkEtBaLl HaS BeEn PlAyEd FoR oVeR 100 yEaRs” - yeah, I know, but today’s game is VASTLY different from that of 60-plus years ago). If you are unfamiliar with my dominance rating, see my previous article describing the statistic. I took the average dominance score for each program across that time span to arrive at the rankings below. I juxtaposed this with average SRS from College Basketball Reference for comparison and additional insight.
By these calculations, UConn ranks a measly 31st! The blue blood mainstays UNC, Kansas, Kentucky, and Duke still appear 1-4, with the other programs in the debate all appearing in the top 10-to-12 regardless of which metric you look at.
UConn’s success has been more recent.
As we said, UConn has exhibited recent dominance. This is clear when we look at year-to-year ratings of UConn compared to the others.
This graph of UConn’s dominance rating against the other true blue bloods shows that virtually all of UConn’s success has come since 1987. Frankly, before that they were bad.
What if we look just at the past 25 years, since the 1999-2000 season?
It’s better, but UConn still only ranks 14th, with Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, UNC, Arizona, Michigan State, and Louisville all in the top-10!
UConn has had its low points, and this extreme dominance is a recent phenomenon.
While other blue bloods definitely had their “off” season(s), like Kentucky in 1989-1990, Duke in 1995 and UNC in 2002, they usually only last one season or so before quickly bouncing back to their usual excellence. UConn had a string of rough years from 2015-2019 (and frankly weren’t all that excellent, relatively speaking, for the 4-5 years leading up to that), and it took them a few seasons after that to get back to average blue blood performance. Additionally, while UConn has had great success and championships in years past, the level of dominance we have seen the past few years in a new phenomenon. Typically, they were just “averagely dominant” (if that) in their past championship seasons of 2014, 2011 2004, and 1999.
UConn’s performance is inconsistent.
Consistent success is a necessary quality for blue blood status. UConn frankly has been more inconsistent than the others. The table below shows the standard deviation (which measures variability in data) of yearly dominance scores for the unquestioned blue bloods and UConn for the two time periods we have looked at. The data since 2000 removes UConn’s rough early years, giving us a clear picture of their consistency since elevating themselves into the conversation of the sport’s best.
UConn’s standard deviation is, by a large margin, the highest of the group since 1967, and narrowly behind UNC since 2000. Kentucky, Duke and Kansas have performed far more consistently that UConn.
So, are they a blue blood?
I’m going to take the easy way out and say, “it depends”. It depends on how many programs you want to group into the blue blood club, and how far back you want to look at the data. One thing is for certain however, if you are arguing that UConn should be in the conversation with Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky and Kansas, I have some disappointing news for you; quite frankly there is no comparison. Alas, congrats on a great season and championship, UConn, but you have some work to do to be considered among the sport’s most elite.