NCAA ladies’s basketball Blue Bloods: Who joins UConn, Tennessee?

In ladies’s faculty basketball, Geno Auriemma’s UConn Huskies are actually, unquestionably, the best and most iconic program within the sport. UConn has captured 12 nationwide titles unfold throughout 4 a long time of excellence, produced numerous superior gamers and went to 14 consecutive Last Fours between 2008 and 2022.

However what concerning the different terrific and tremendous profitable applications within the sport, just like the Notre Dames and Tennessees and Stanfords? Who else belongs within the group of Blue Bloods in ladies’s faculty basketball?

What does and doesn’t outline a Blue Blood is totally arbitrary and up for debate. In males’s basketball, some assume Indiana nonetheless belongs despite the fact that the Hoosiers haven’t gained a nationwide title since 1987 and have missed six of the final eight NCAA Tournaments. In the meantime, some nonetheless overlook UConn’s males’s workforce despite the fact that it has gained six titles since 1999. Blue Blood standing might be much more troublesome to decipher in faculty soccer, however you recognize it once you see it: Alabama and Ohio State are completely a part of that group, however what concerning the Combating Irish, who haven’t gained a nationwide championship since earlier than the daybreak of the BCS? Ought to Clemson be in that group?

We’ll save these arguments for one more day. That is all about ladies’s faculty basketball.

Right here’s my extremely unscientific standards for Blue Bloods in ladies’s hoops:

With that standards in thoughts, we’ve got seven applications who presently have Blue Blood standing in ladies’s faculty basketball. For the applications neglected, there’s a method again to assert that standing, similar to there are methods that a few of these groups can fall out. If the Trojans, Tar Heels, Tigers or Longhorns win a second nationwide title someday quickly, they’re again within the combine. The highway again to relevancy is longer for the likes of Previous Dominion and Louisiana Tech, however we must always fondly look again at their dominance within the Eighties and Nineties, and bear in mind them as the primary Blue Bloods of the game.

Right here’s a better have a look at our ladies’s faculty basketball Blue Blood membership, listed alphabetically:

Kim Mulkey turned Baylor right into a powerhouse, lacking the NCAA Match simply as soon as in 21 seasons in Waco. Since she left for LSU, Nicki Collen has stored issues rolling, going 102-36 — a .739 profitable proportion — in her 4 seasons main the Girl Bears. This system has produced three winners of the Wade Trophy up to now 15 years, from Brittney Griner to Odyssey Sims to NaLyssa Smith. They proceed to be a contender in a new-look Massive 12.

It’s been some time since Maryland has competed for a nationwide championship, and it’s the one program right here with only a single title, however few applications have been extra constant than Brenda Frese’s Terps since she took the reins in Faculty Park in 2002. Since lacking the NCAA Match in 2010, Maryland hasn’t had a dropping document in convention play, has been to each March Insanity since, has completed the season ranked contained in the AP prime 10 seven occasions, and has captured seven Massive Ten match crowns. The Terps proceed to be one of many sport’s persistently nice applications — an ordinary set by former coach Chris Weller when she was piling up ACC Match trophies a long time in the past.

Like Baylor underneath Mulkey, Notre Dame turned a nationwide energy in ladies’s basketball through the 2000s and 2010s underneath the steerage of Muffet McGraw. Between 1996 and 2019, an NCAA Match wasn’t performed with out the Combating Irish, a program that has produced iconic gamers and nationwide award winners like Ruth Riley, Skylar Diggins and Arike Ogunbowale. Since ending runner-up to Baylor in 2019, the Irish haven’t superior previous the Candy 16. It’s as much as Niele Ivey to uphold McGraw’s normal now.

One might simply make the case that no program has been as profitable as South Carolina within the final decade. Along with seven Last 4 journeys and three titles, the Gamecocks went 167-9 from 2020 by way of 2024, notching the most effective win proportion within the nation over that stretch. South Carolina was an afterthought in ladies’s basketball for a few years, after which Daybreak Staley arrived in 2008 and proceeded to remodel the Gamecocks into one of many sport’s Demise Stars with all-time superior gamers like A’ja Wilson, Aliyah Boston and Kamilla Cardoso.

No NCAA Match was performed with out Stanford in it from 1988 by way of 2024. That streak, which dated again to the Reagan Administration, ended this previous season — Kate Paye’s first 12 months on the job after taking on for the legendary Tara VanDerveer. As Stanford and the game enter a brand new period, the place the Cardinal are within the ACC and coping with the Home Settlement and switch portal, its long-term standing as a Blue Blood appears to be fragile. Can the Cardinal proceed to win at a excessive degree and compete for nationwide championships on this new period? We’ll see.

Whereas eight nationwide championships and 18 Last Fours are extremely spectacular, all of these heights have been reached by the Girl Vols when the late Pat Summitt was the top coach. Since her retirement, Tennessee has struggled to place itself in place to compete for nationwide championships. With the rise of South Carolina and LSU, the SEC is lots more durable now too. Issues seemed promising this previous season underneath first-year head coach Kim Caldwell, because the Girl Vols embraced her fashion of play, beat rival UConn and superior to the Candy 16. Tennessee being a constant nationwide contender once more could be a superb factor for the game.

Plenty of people have been able to signal UConn’s dying certificates after it went — *gasp!* — eight years with out profitable a nationwide title as parity within the sport elevated following Breanna Stewart’s dominant run with the Huskies. However Paige Bueckers, Azzi Fudd and Sarah Sturdy put the Huskies again on prime this previous spring in Tampa, powering UConn to its twelfth championship underneath Geno Auriemma. Not like a few of its previous contemporaries and rivals from the Nineties and 2000s, we all know that UConn is supplied to compete for extra championships on this new period of ladies’s faculty basketball. Despite the fact that Auriemma is 71, the Huskies present no indicators of slowing down.