So this is interesting: former Duke greats Jason Williams and Grant Hill disagree about whether UNC is still a Blue Blood or not. Both of them grew up Carolina fans before they developed more refined taste, incidentally.
Williams argues that UNC is no longer a Blue Blood, that they’ve fallen off for too long. Hill counters that UNC has won a championship more recently than has Duke, and has been to a Final Four more recently too, both of which are undeniably true.
It’s an interesting question, really.
The traditional Blue Bloods – a stupid term, by the way – are roughly this:
- Duke
- UNC
- Kentucky
- Kansas
- Indiana
- UCLA
A more contemporary list is closer to this:
- Duke
- UNC
- Kentucky
- Kansas
- Michigan State
- UConn
- Gonzaga
You no doubt have a few schools you might like to add or subtract. The funny thing is, with the game in such flux, it really is hard to define. Take Kentucky.
Kentucky legend Dan Issel said something truly funny the other day: when everyone is paying players, it’s harder to cheat. It’s funny, but there is truth to it. In fact, we were told by a former Kentucky player that Wildcat players were absolutely paid.
No one knows what will happen to Kansas when Bill Self retires, but like a lot of older coaches, he’s tailed off at the end of his career. In the last four years, Kansas has not made it out of the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, and they’ve finished 5th, 6th, and 3rd in the Big 12 in the last three seasons – this after finishing 1st or tied for 1st for 14 straight years.
What happens when he steps down? No one knows.
Duke and UNC approached succession quite differently. Mike Krzyzewski and Jon Scheyer worked closely together in Coach K’s final season. Scheyer won over his own recruits and built his team his way. It was an astonishing succession, nearly perfectly executed.
In Chapel Hill, Roy Williams stepped down and made it clear that Hubert Davis was his preferred replacement.
As it turned out, Davis didn’t communicate with his players very well, coached teams that were wildly erratic, and was dismissed after another yo-yo season.
In his defense, losing Caleb Wilson to injuries was a fatal blow, but on the other hand, allowing him to dunk when he was still recovering from a wrist injury was just foolish (it was not the same hand, but that doesn’t make it any smarter).
With the Dean Smith coaching tree out of candidates, UNC hired NBA coach Michael Malone. Will he restore or keep UNC as a Blue Blood?
Quite possibly. He’s done a decent job of identifying and acquiring talent, and he’s placated the traditionalists by hiring a number of former UNC players to fill out his staff.
However, the track record of NBA coaches moving to college is not great. Fred Hoiberg has done well at Nebraska, and Larry Brown was a brilliant coach who would have succeeded anywhere, at least for a few seasons, before his wanderlust kicked in.
And Kevin Young has done well at BYU.
But the list of failures is long: Isiah Thomas, Mike Dunleavy Sr., Chris Mullin, and Patrick Ewing, to name a few.
A big part of the reason why they failed is not as relevant anymore, and that’s recruiting. You can work the portal and get a pretty good team in a hurry. At least for now, you can recruit overseas too (that may change soon with some proposed new rules).
But it’s also different in that you’re dealing with much younger players. Duke will have a 17-year-0ld next year in Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje. A lot of freshmen are 17.
Malone is used to dealing with people who, for the most part, are reliable professionals in their 20s and 30s. It’s going to be fascinating to see how he goes from being, for lack of a better comparison, a manager to a teacher.
If he succeeds, the question will be answered. If he does not succeed, the question is much more pressing for UNC. And keep in mind that in the recent past, Indiana, Kentucky, and UNC all had coaching searches. All swung for the fences, assuming that their history would sway an accomplished college coach.
It didn’t work for any of them.
So perhaps we should consider this an open question for the near future.
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