Premo-Porretta Power Poll

The Premo-Porretta Power Poll is a retroactive end-of-year ranking for American college basketball teams competing in the 1895–96 through the 1947–48 seasons.^[1]

The Premo-Porretta Polls are intended to serve collectively as a source of information regarding the relative standings of college basketball teams within given seasons during the early decades of the sport. No systematic end-of-season national tournament existed in college basketball until the founding of the National Invitation Tournament in 1938 and the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Tournament in 1939, the latter of which determines the NCAA Champion for a given season. Furthermore, no regular, recognized national polling took place prior to the establishment of the Associated Press Poll and the Coaches Poll for college basketball prior to the 1948–49 and 1950–51 seasons, respectively.^[2]

Background

Patrick Premo, a professor emeritus of accounting at St. Bonaventure University, and Phil Porretta, a former computer programmer, have each spent more than 40 years—first separately, and later collaboratively—researching the early history of college basketball.^[1] Their archival work has often uncovered game results that had not previously been reported in books and basketball program media guides, such as the results of competition against AAU, semi-professional, club, and YMCA teams.^[1] Whereas Bill Schroeder of the Helms Athletic Foundation only retroactively named his choice of the top team nationally for each season,^[3] Premo and Porretta have used the data they have compiled to compare teams against one another and assign rankings to multiple teams for each season–15 teams for the 1895–96 season, 20 teams for each season from the 1896–97 through the 1908–09 seasons, and 25 teams for each season from the 1909–10 through the 1947–48 seasons.^[4]

Premo and Porretta first published results of their early collaboration in 1995. Most recently, in 2009, their full rankings were included with the core information for each season prior to 1949 in the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia.^[5]

National champions

Pre-NCAA Tournament champions

Year Team Record 1895–96 Yale 8–5 1896–97 Yale 11–6 1897–98 Mount Union 8–1 1898–99 Yale 9–2 1899–1900 Yale 9–6 1900–01 Bucknell 12–1 1901–02 Minnesota 15–0 1902–03 Minnesota 13–0 1903–04 Columbia 17–1 1904–05 Columbia 19–1 1905–06 Wabash 17–1 1906–07 Williams 15–1 1907–08 Wabash 24–0 1908–09 Chicago 12–0 1909–10 Williams 11–0 1910–11 St. John's 14–0 1911–12 Wisconsin 15–0 1912–13 Navy 9–0 1913–14 Wisconsin 15–0 1914–15 Illinois 16–0 1915–16 Wisconsin 20–1 1916–17 Washington State 25–1

Year Team Record 1917–18 Syracuse 16–1 1918–19 Navy 16–0 1919–20 Penn 22–1 1920–21 Missouri 17–1 1921–22 Missouri 16–1 1922–23 Army 17–0 1923–24 North Carolina 26–0 1924–25 Princeton 21–2 1925–26 Syracuse 19–1 1926–27 California 17–0 1927–28 Pittsburgh 21–0 1928–29 Montana State 36–2 1929–30 Alabama 20–0 1930–31 Northwestern 16–1 1931–32 Purdue 17–1 1932–33 Texas 22–1 1933–34 Kentucky 16–1 1934–35 NYU 19–1 1935–36 Long Island 26–0 1936–37 Stanford 25–2 1937–38 Temple ^† 23–2

^† NIT Champion for that season

Pre-Associated Press Poll champions

Year	Team	Record
1938–39	Long Island ^†	24–0
1939–40	Indiana ^‡	20–3
1940–41	Long Island ^†	25–2
1941–42	Stanford ^‡	28–4
1942–43	Illinois	17–1
1943–44	Army	15–0
1944–45	Iowa	17–1
1945–46	Oklahoma A&M ^‡	31–2
1946–47	Kentucky	34–3
1947–48	Kentucky ^‡	36–3

^† NIT Champion for that season ^‡ NCAA Champion for that season

References

1. ESPN, ed. (2009). ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia: The Complete History of the Men's Game. New York, NY: ESPN Books. p. 526. ISBN 978-0-345-51392-2.
2. ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, pp. 526–27
3. Jenkins, Dan (September 11, 1967). "This Year The Fight Will Be In The Open". Sports Illustrated. Retrieved May 3, 2015.
4. ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, pp. 529–87
5. ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia, pp. 526, 529–87