UNC makes The Athletic’s list of six men’s basketball ‘blue bloods’

By R.L. Bynum

There were few surprises when seven sportswriters at The Athletic put the men’s college basketball programs into tiers and determined which six were “blue bloods.”

As you would expect, North Carolina made that top-six list, as well as Duke, Kansas and Kentucky. Joining them were UCLA and UConn, as detailed in this story.

The story notes that since Indiana, which is in its Tier 2A, last made the Final Four in 2002, UNC has six Final Fours and three titles, Duke has four and two, Kansas six and two and Kentucky four and one.

Other ACC teams got voted into lower tiers.

Louisville was among five programs in Tier 2A (Gonzaga was alone in 2B), Syracuse and Virginia made the 15-school Tier 3, with Notre Dame in the 20-program Tier 4.

Clemson, Florida State, Georgia Tech, Miami, N.C. State, Pittsburgh, future ACC school Stanford, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are in the 28-program Tier 5.

Boston College and future ACC school Cal made the 15-program Tier 6.

Future ACC school SMU didn’t make any list.

Read the story and The Athletic’s explanations here.

Photo by Smith Hardy