Blue blood programs shut out of preseason AP All-America team

It doesn't happen often, but every now and then a college basketball season begins without a player from one of the sport's blue blood programs being named to the Associated Press All-American first team.

This is one of those seasons.

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The AP preseason team was released Monday and it featured four familiar names to college hoops fans and one newcomer. Gonzaga’s Kyle Wiltjer, who began his career at Kentucky, received more votes than any other player. He is joined on the team by fellow seniors in Iowa State forward Georges Niang and Oklahoma guard Buddy Hield.

Providence junior guard Kris Dunn is widely considered the most NBA ready player in college basketball entering the 2015-16 season, which begins Friday. And LSU freshman forward Ben Simmons is the new guy and is a player fans around the nation are eager to see play.

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All-America teams in the sport almost always include at least one player from Duke, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, North Carolina or UCLA the teams universally considered the blue bloods of the college game. It's true whether you're talking about the preseason or postseason teams.

But it's not as if those programs annually dominate the All-America selections. The 2013 preseason team for instance, included only Kansas freshman Andrew Wiggins as a blue blood representative and the only such player on the 2012 preseason AP team was Indiana forward Cody Zeller.

The last time the postseason AP All-America team didn't include at least one player from blue blood schools was the 2003-04 season when Josh Childress from Stanford, Ryan Gomes from Providence, Jameer Nelson from Saint Joseph's, Emeka Okafor from UConn and Lawrence Roberts from Mississippi State were honored.

UConn is certainly about as close as it gets to a blue blood program but isn't technically considered one and certainly wasn't at the time that 2003-04 team was selected.

Fans who don't cheer for blue blood programs will certainly see this as a positive harbinger for the season to come. While fans of those traditional powers probably won't lose much sleep. Each of those six blue blood rosters features plenty of talent and several of those teams should contend for a national title again this year. The postseason All-America team could look much different in April.

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[Kyle Ringo is the assistant editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at kyle.ringo@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @KyleRingo