Blue Blood Coaching
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“Blue blood” refers to origin or lineage and not to current status. UCLA and particularly Indiana might not be as relevant now as they once were but both are indeed Blue blood programs.
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@JayHawkFanToo If it’s orgins UCLA is easily out, they pretty much stank before Wooden, than have stank every year but about 6 since the mid 70s.
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If Indiana and UCLA aren’t blue bloods, the only true blue bloods are KU, UNC and UK. Duke can’t really be called a blue blood because they didn’t have much tradition pre-Coach K, so if UCLA is out, Duke isn’t a blue blood until they do it without Coach K.
There’s really no other schools that have a long history of consistent success.
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You really should brush up on Duke’s history if you think they were good only with Coach K, I know you will be surprised.
Much like nobility from which the term “blue blood” comes from origin and status are not necessarily related. Many people confuse the term “blue blood” with “elite” which are not related since many original blue blood programs from the earlier days such as San Fancisco, La Salle, Loyola and many others are largely irrelevant now and, much like nobility, no one really cares who was good in the 30s, 40s or 50s or even 60s and 70s. The NCAA started in 1939 and the rules continued to change and wasn’t until the late 50s-early 60s that the game started to resemble what we have today. The current criteria for elite, or what some people call blue bloods, programs is how they performed since 1984 when the tournament was expanded to 64 teams; any thing before that is really not that relevant to the current status of college basketball.
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justanotherfan said:
Duke can’t really be called a blue blood because they didn’t have much tradition pre-Coach K, so if UCLA is out, Duke isn’t a blue blood until they do it without Coach K.
AMEN!!!
I’ve said this FOREVER. UNC, Kansas, UK, UCLA, Indiana ALL have won championships with multiple coaches. Duke made two title games before Coach K but that is it.
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JayHawkFanToo said:
You really should brush up on Duke’s history if you think they were good only with Coach K, I know you will be surprised.
ZERO titles period without K.
If they are Blue Blood they are last.
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I excluded Duke because although they had some good seasons prior to Coach K, they don’t have any real history as a national power prior to that. I think they went to three final fours in the 60’s, but that was it (just double checked, it was three in the 60’s, one in the 70’s). If Duke is a blue blood based on that, you have to give a hard look to Cincinnati, Oklahoma State, UConn and Ohio State, as well as both Michigan and Michigan State. All six of those programs have quite a bit of history from the 40’s, 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. They don’t have the history of championships that Duke has (outside of UConn, which does have four titles in the last 20 years), but they all have titles and a run of success.
Cincinnati has been to six final fours, (five straight in the late 50’s and early 60’s), but has also been to the Elite Eight a couple other times, has two titles (and another championship appearance). They have also been ranked #1 in the country for the 7th most weeks all time. And that’s under several different coaches.
Ohio State has been to 11 final fours, won a title, and has 15 elite eights, all under several different coaches. They don’t have the titles that other programs have, but Ohio State’s history is very long.
UConn’s history isn’t quite as storied, but they get more bang for their buck than most. They only have five Final Fours in their history, but they have four titles. Most of that history was under Jim Calhoun, but Kevin Ollie nabbed a title while he was there, and UConn had an Elite Eight appearance before Calhoun came on the scene back in the 60’s.
Oklahoma State has a pair of titles under Henry Iba (that’s why the building has his name on it), plus two more final four under Iba, and another pair under Eddie Sutton. Under Iba, it could be argued that Oklahoma State was the best program in the Missouri Valley (precursor to the Big Six, Seven and Eight). The results have been lean since Sutton left, but again, they have strong results under two different coaches.
Michigan has a lot of history as well. Only one title, but five runner ups (under four different coaches), and another final four besides that.
And finally Michigan State, with a pair of titles (under two different coaches), nine final fours (under three different coaches). Most of the success has been under Izzo, but they have had success under other coaches as well.
Coach K is a legend, but he accounts for so much of Duke’s history that it’s hard to consider Duke a true blue blood without also including at least a couple of the schools I mentioned here as well.
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Again, the term “blue blood” is currently used out of context to indicated “elite.” If you go by the definition of the term, only the first dozen or so teams that originally played basketball, regardless of whether they won or lost, would qualify and maybe, and as I mentioned, some programs from the 30s, 40s and 50s when they still had a jump ball after each basket would qualify; I mentioned some and you mentioned some such as the Russell-Jones San Francisco teams or the Big O teams at Cincinnati, how about the DePaul teams with George Mikan?
Again, basketball as we know it did not start until the late 50s when the rules were standardize to be close to where they are today and most schools before them were not even integrated. Most teams that dominated before then are completely irrelevant now and most people don’t even know about them or more importantly, don’t care. Ask any one younger than 50 if they know who George Mikan was and you will get a blank stare, other than KU fans and some diehard college basketball fans, most will not even know who The Big Dipper was.
The dunk was reintroduced to college in 1976 and the 3 point shot who some conferences started using in 1981 was not standardized by the NCAA until 1986; Jordan played his entire college career without the 3 point shot and it took him 5 seasons in the NBA before he became a half way decent 3 point shooter. Can you imagine the game without those two plays. Modern college basketball starts in earnest in 1985 when the Tournament was expanded to 64 teams and term elite or a some people call it blue blood should be used from there on as the game as played today has very little resemblance to the game played in the earl days. Just my opinion.
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Blue blood criteria (mayjay definition): Multiple titles, at least 10 F4s, at least 30 NCAA appearances, at least 15 conference titles (at least 2 before 1939), at least 15 All Americans, at least two Hall of Fame coaches, and numerous players on any All-Time Best 100 College Players.
One or more criterion can be missed if another is way beyond the minimum.
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I absolutely agree with you that the modern college basketball game didn’t start until at least 1979 (Bird/Magic title game), and didn’t really start in earnest until the 1985 tournament (ending with Villanova knocking off Georgetown in the title game). I would argue the modern college basketball landscape didn’t start until 1990 or 1991 when the big time recruiting wars first started gaining steam.
If we limit it to the “modern” blue bloods (1985 forward), we are talking about Kansas, Duke, Kentucky, UNC, and UConn. Michigan State and Arizona narrowly miss out (only one title each). Villanova is a step behind (too many lean years in between the title years).
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Blue Blood has always meant all time programs.
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Teams: Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina, UCLA
Since 1965 (last 52 tournaments) there have only been four Final Fours that did not include one of those six teams; 2013, 1985, 1983, 1979.
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I agree except I would not call them blue blood but elite programs, actually High Elite Majors is not a bad moniker…wait…HEM!!!
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To me, there are really only 3 true bloods. Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina. These are the three programs that you can look at just about any decade and they are/were relevant to college basketball in that decade.
I would put Duke, Indiana, and UCLA as 2nd tier programs. Their history is largely associated with one coach, but they have had some success during the tenure of other coaches.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I think you are seriously understating Indiana’s successful history that is not just primarily associated with B Knight. They had two HOF coaches before him. In fact, they fit pretty much every criteria I set out above except they “only” have 8 F4s. Since they won 5 championships, however, that pretty much makes up for it.
Incidentally, two other cool facts about Indiana in the Wikipedia article: glass backboards started there, and, of course, the last undefeated team (1976).
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Hoosiers_men’s_basketball
Edit: The coach who won the 2 titles before Knight was elected as a player, but his record sure looks like he would have gotten in as a coach.
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@mayjay I’m plenty familiar with Indiana’s history. They made 5 NCAA tournaments prior to Knight. They were an inconsistent program prior to Knight displacing UCLA as the best program at the time.
They are a tier 2 program with Duke and UCLA because they don’t have the consistency that Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina have had.
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@kjayhawks Yah. I get it. I really do. But, KU has also gone thru a period of time where they weren’t very good. Its been like 35+ years but still, KU went through it and still remains a blue blood.
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Texas Hawk 10 said:
To me, there are really only 3 true bloods. Kansas, Kentucky, and North Carolina. These are the three programs that you can look at just about any decade and they are/were relevant to college basketball in that decade.
I would put Duke, Indiana, and UCLA as 2nd tier programs. Their history is largely associated with one coach, but they have had some success during the tenure of other coaches.
Yep. and without Kansas there would be no Kentucky or UNC basketball.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 In those 5 appearances they won two titles. We made it 8 times in the same era (1939-1970), winning once. For the next 18 years until 1988, we still had 1 tourney title, while Indiana moved up to 5. More appearances for us, more success as measured by NCs for them.
We have been much more successful since their last title–2 for us.
I think of Indiana and UCLA as being like the Queen Mother in her last years–fading royalty deserving of respect.
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mayjay said:
I think of Indiana and UCLA as being like the Queen Mother in her last years–fading royalty deserving of respect.
And don’t be shocked when Archie Miller gets Indiana going again. He was left with Crean’s defensively soft players. Once he gets his type of players they will seriously compete. At Dayton his teams played good defense and always played hard.
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mayjay said:
@Texas-Hawk-10 I think you are seriously understating Indiana’s successful history that is not just primarily associated with B Knight. They had two HOF coaches before him. In fact, they fit pretty much every criteria I set out above except they “only” have 8 F4s. Since they won 5 championships, however, that pretty much makes up for it.
Incidentally, two other cool facts about Indiana in the Wikipedia article: glass backboards started there, and, of course, the last undefeated team (1976).
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Hoosiers_men’s_basketball
Edit: The coach who won the 2 titles before Knight was elected as a player, but his record sure looks like he would have gotten in as a coach.
The claim of Indiana having the first glass backboards in 1917 is completely bogus. Naismith had glass backboards installed in Robinson Gymnasium when it was built in 1907 and KU used them for many years. Indiana wasn’t even the first in the their own conference to use glass backboards, Illinois and Purdue were already using them.
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@BigBad Only 3 Bluebloods: Kansas, UNC, and Kentucky. Everyone else is a step below. Doesn’t mean they aren’t great programs - they aren’t bluebloods. Dook and Indiana are both little brothers trying to hang out with older brother and his friends. You guys keep up this “anybody can be part of the bluebloods” jazz, and I’ll pull out the Hank Iba routine, and no one wants to go over that again, do we?
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@5yardfuller Indiana…blue blood wanna be.
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mayjay said:
Blue blood criteria (mayjay definition): Multiple titles, at least 10 F4s, at least 30 NCAA appearances, at least 15 conference titles (at least 2 before 1939), at least 15 All Americans, at least two Hall of Fame coaches, and numerous players on any All-Time Best 100 College Players.
One or more criterion can be missed if another is way beyond the minimum.
You missed founder of basketball coached at school, have an historic old fieldhouse, not a mall park, have an ancient cheer, has a history linked to the winning side in the civil war.
Keep going, I think we could whittle it down to we’re the only true blueblood.
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@wissox I thought about adding: having a coach with, uh, “consistent hair”; having the coolest fanbase; and (more seriously) having a player who caused a rule change; having a unique mascot that is not yet another eff-ing feline; and having the best fight song.
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The NCAA banned the dunk because of Kareem?
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@JayHawkFanToo Heresy. Okay, not heresy, but first the NCAA banned dunking FTs b/c you-know-who had done so in HS.
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Actually this was discussed either in this board or the previous one and I don’t believe anyone could provide proof, other than rumors and annecdotal evidence, that either Wilt did it or that the NCAA banned it because of him. Maybe and hopefully you have better information.
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@JayHawkFanToo I found this that purports to have a contemporary newspaper article but have no idea how genuine.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/6djlxh/heres_the_research_behind_wilt_chamberlain/
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The article goes on to say that Wilt did this in HS and then quotes Wilt as saying he never did it in high school but “experimented” with it his first year of college. How could it be said the NCAA banned the play because Wilt did it in HS when he acknowledges he never did it? I love Wilt but I believe this falls under the category of urban legend.
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@JayHawkFanToo The article discusses people who said they heard about it. Wilt didn’t play his freshman year and the rule was changed after that. So, if he experimented his freshman year, they could have changed the rule in response to the rumor, which is what I had heard, and what the article and the poster say.
Or perhaps the article was faked, Rules Chairman Tex Winter never said anything about seeing Wilt do it as a freshman (so the audio is fake, too), the rumors from the time (my father told me the story) were false, and it was just a coincidence.
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Again, my point is that contrary to popular lore that he did it in HS, Wilt acknowledged he never did and there is no record anywhere he ever did it in any college game or practice even when he was in the junior varsity or that he actually converted one, only that he “experimented” with it. Perhaps that is enough for you but not for me so let’s agree to disagree?
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@JayHawkFanToo Tex Winter is quoted as saying he watched Wilt do it in the Fr vs Varsity game, but sure, that is not evidence. The HS thing is a non-issue.
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Not trying to be a dick but don’t you think if he had done it in the junior versus varsity game there would be contemporaneous accounts about the feat other than from the Kansas State Coach that had no business being at that game and Wilt himself never claimed he did it during a game, any game. Don’t you think that if true it would have been part of the KU historical narrative and in the media guide and used extensively by the program much like UCLA talks about the dunk being banned because of Kareem?
Like I said, this topic has been discussed extensively over the years and no one has been able to come up with any corroboration. Now, if that is good enough for you then by all means believe the story, it just does not add up for me.
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That was a marvelous run down of the other great programs of college basketball history. Thanks for refreshing my memory with it!
I also get your logic and conclusion. Persuades me.
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@JayHawkFanToo I think it seems fairly clear that the rule change for free throws was instigated by Tex Winter because he thought Chamberlain could do it. Below is a link to a Bill Mayer column from March 28, 1956 which gives some details.
As to whether Chamberlain ever did do it, Dick Harp said no in the Mayer column. I found another article from the Des Moines Tribune also from March 28, 1956 which said, "Harp laughed when asked if Wilt could dunk a free throw. “I’ve heard that story,” he said, “but I’ve never seen him do it, either in practice or a game. I think that’s one rumor you can lay to rest.”
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@5yardfuller Great find. So, Wilt may have never done something that people basically just imagined he could do, so they adopted the FT restriction anyway. The myths built up so fear of the Stilt was great and served him well in many other ways.
A couple of takeaways from the article: Don’t you miss the long, newsy and folksy discussions by those old columnists? Now, everything is condensed, columns are short and poorly edited, newsprint is scarce, much of what we read outside large cities is syndicated or adapted from elsewhere, and columnists are not given much freedom to expound as much. Many were provocative, but it is a slice from the past that I miss greatly.
And the discussion of Bill Russell is great. “The Frisco Giraffe.” Discussed by KU trainer Dean Naismith.
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The furthest I have ever seen someone dunk without a run up was from just inside the circle (probably 8-10 feet from the basket). I’ve heard rumors of guys getting out to maybe 11 feet with just a step or two, since you have to start from inside the arc in order to shoot a FT. Obviously, guys have dunked from the FT line before (Jordan, Dr. J, I think David Thompson, etc.), but that was generally with a pretty good run up (40+ feet).
I would guess a guy like Lebron James could probably dunk from 12 feet max with two steps. Prime Dwight Howard would probably be about the same (similar measurements to Wilt, though Wilt was slightly taller, similar athleticism). But that’s still well short of 15 feet. It sounds more like urban legend than fact to me. Maybe they saw Wilt drop step and dunk from 8 or 9 feet and thought with one more step he could in fact get out to 15, or saw him dunk with a run up from 13 or 14 feet. All of that is conceivable, even likely. But that still doesn’t cover the extra foot or two he would need, and the condensed space he would have to generate momentum.
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The stories I always heard had Wilt doing a finger roll as a free throw. Dunking from the free throw line after one step would be super human. Not impossible to believe Wilt could do it though, given his mystique.
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Excellent find. Like I said, this has been discussed on KU related sports boards for as far back as we have had sports boards and I have yet to see any evidence he ever did it, even Wilt himself never said he did it only that he “experimented” with it.
I am sure the subject will pop up again in a couple of years.
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I’m inclined to think there really are only 3 true blue blood programs. KU, Kentucky, and UNC. We all know the history. KU had the inventor of the game as their first coach. KU always had the Father of Coaching. Both UK’s and UNC’s real basketball started with Players and students of the game that came from KU. I think it is the likes of Espn that has changed the meaning of Blue Blood. They made an elite club that can be achieved with success on the court. The only other two I can see? Maybe? Indiana and UCLA? Yet I even question them, with there lack of success in the recent game of basketball.
I guess what I’m saying if you don’t come from the KU linage. YOU ISN’T A BLUE BLOOD.
