Regular Season Champions

[SWC75]

We’re trying to win the ACC regular season championship. Then we’ll try to win the ACC Tournament. We’re also trying to win the national championship but that can only be won by winning the NCAA tournament. It made me wonder what things might have been like over the years if we had a regular season national championship and a post season national championship as we do with the conferences. Football used to base its national championship on the last regular season poll, (that ended in 1968: the first poll was in 1936). What if we looked at the team voted #1 in the last regular season writer’s or coach’s polls as the regular season national champion? You could argue that attaining and maintain a #1 ranking to the end of a 31 game regular season is as much of an accomplishment as winning a single elimination tournament over 6 games. You might argue that the latter is harder but it also has more freakish results. If you are voted #1 at the end of the regular season, that’s not a freak thing. Maybe we should recognize both.


In basketball, the writer’s poll began in the 1948-49 season, (I’ll call that 1949 for short), the coach’s in 1950-51, (which I’ll call 1951). Where there is a conference tournament, I’ll use the last poll before the conference tournament. Here are your “regular season national champions” (source: The ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, the ESPN website and SportsReference.com: College Basketball):


1949 Kentucky

1950 Bradley

1951 Kentucky and Oklahoma A&M (now Oklahoma State)

1952 Kentucky

1953 Indiana

1954 Kentucky and Indiana

1955 San Francisco

1956 San Francisco

1957 North Carolina

1958 West Virginia

1959 Kansas State

1960 Cincinnati and California

1961 Ohio State

1962 Ohio State

1963 Cincinnati

1964 UCLA

1965 Michigan

1966 Kentucky

1967 UCLA

1968 Houston

1969 UCLA

1970 Kentucky

1971 UCLA

1972 UCLA

1973 UCLA

1974 NC State

1975 Indiana

1976 Indiana

1977 Michigan

1978 Kentucky

1979 Indiana State

1980 DePaul

1981 DePaul

1982 North Carolina

1983 Houston

1984 North Carolina

1985 Georgetown

1986 Duke

1987 UNLV

1988 Temple

1989 Arizona

1990 Oklahoma

1991 UNLV

1992 Duke

1993 North Carolina

1994 Arkansas

1995 UCLA

1996 Kentucky

1997 Kansas

1998 Duke

1999 Duke

2000 Cincinnati

2001 Stanford

2002 Kansas

2003 Arizona

2004 St. Joseph’s

2005 Illinois

2006 Connecticut

2007 Ohio State

2008 North Carolina

2009 Louisville

2010 Kansas

2011 Ohio State

2012 Kentucky

2013 Gonzaga


The NCAA tournament champions would also be national champions, just as the ACC tournament champions will also be ACC champions. Syracuse would thus be going for four championships this season: the ACC regular season and national regular season, both of which could be win by March 9th, A Sunday when we play our last regular season game vs. Florida State), the ACC tournament championship, which we would compete for the next week and NCAA title, which we could compete for over the final three weeks. They would all count and they would all matter. If we finish say, 36-1, (losing our first game in the Sweet 16), we would already have won a national championship. Someone else would then win the spot season championship.

 

[cuserulesall]

I really feel this team can be #1 at the end of the regular season . I think winning the ACC tourny will be tough down south . In a couple of years the ACC will have the ACC tourny in MSG , thats home field advantage . We cut down the nets in April , that should be 3 out of 4 Championships this season . Then I would be content for years to come !

 

[AccuRater]

Amazing that Syracuse has never ended the season as a #1. I thought perhaps in the late 80s.

 

[SWC75]

Amazing that Syracuse has never ended the season as a #1. I thought perhaps in the late 80s.

I thought we had in 2012 but no:
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/rankings/_/year/2012/week/18/seasontype/2

 

[SWC75]

I made a composite list of "regular season" and "post season" national championships. There was no "regular season" championship before the first writer's poll in 1948. The ESPN Encyclopedia does have something called the Premo-Poretta Power Poll and Helms National champions before that but they include the post season: there's no "end of the regular season" ranking for those years. But there is a "post season" national championship because the NCAA tournament began in 1939.


A composite list of national championships won, (“R” is a regular season title, “P” is the post season title):

Arizona R1989, P1997, R2003 (3)
Arkansas R1994, P1994 (2)
Bradley R1950 (1)
California P1959, R1960 (2)
CCNY P1950 (1)
Cincinnati R1960, P1961, P1962, R1963, R2000 (5)
Connecticut P1999, P2004, R2006, P2011 (4)
DePaul R1980, R1981 (1)
Duke R1986, P1991, R1992, P1992, R1998, R1999, P2001, P2010 (8)
Florida P2006, P2007 (1)
Georgetown P1984, R1985 (2)
Gonzaga R2013 (1)
Holy Cross P1947 (1)
Houston R1968, R1983 (2)
Illinois R2005 (1)
Indiana P1940, P1953, R1953, R1954, R1975, R1976, P1976, P1981, P1987 (9)
Indiana State R1979 (1)
Kansas P1952, P1988, R1997, R2002, P2008, R2010 (6)
Kansas State R1959 (1)
Kentucky P1948, R1949, P1949, R1951, P1951, R1952, R1954, P1958, R1966, R1970, R1978, P1978, R1996, P1996, P1998, R2012, P2012 (17)
LaSalle P1954 (1)
Louisville P1980, P1986, R2009, P2013 (4)
Loyola (Chicago) P1963 (1)
Marquette P1977 (1)
Maryland P2002 (1)
Michigan R1965, R1977, P1989 (3)
Michigan State P1979, P2000 (2)
North Carolina R1957, P1957, R1982, P1982, R1984, R1993, P1993, P2005, R2008, P2009 (10)
North Carolina State R 1974, P1974, P1983 (3)
Ohio State P1960, R1961, R1962, R2007, R2011 (5)
Oklahoma R1990 (1)
Oklahoma State (A&M) P1945, P1946, R1951 (3)
Oregon P1939 (1)
San Francisco R1955, P1955, R1956, P1956 (4)
St. Joseph’s R2004 (1)
Stanford P1942, R2001 (2)
Syracuse P2003 (1)
Temple R1988 (1)
Texas-El-Paso, (Texas Western) P1966 (1)
UCLA R1964, P1964, P1965, R1967, P1967, P1968, R1969, P1969, P1970, R1971, P1971, R1972, P1972, R1973, P1973, P1975, R1995, P1995 (18)
UNLV R1987, P1990, R1991 (3)
Utah P1944 (1)
Villanova P1985 (1)
West Virginia R1958 (1)
Wisconsin P1941 (1)
Wyoming P1943 (1)