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. The top-ranked team for each season is retroactively recognized by the poll's creators as the national champion. These selections are not officially recognized by the NCAA.

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 for college basketball prior to the establishment of the Associated Press poll and the coaches poll in the 1948–49 and 1950–51 seasons, respectively.

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. 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. Whereas Bill Schroeder of the Helms Athletic Foundation retroactively named only his choice of the top team nationally for each season from 1900–01 through 1941–42 (and then annually selected a national champion for each season from 1942–43 through 1981–82), 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 1896–97 through 1908–09, and 25 teams for each season from 1909–10 through 1947–48.

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.

Retroactive national champion selections

See also: National championships in men's college basketball

The teams listed below are the highest-ranked teams in the Premo-Porretta Power Poll for that season and are retroactively designated as national champions by the poll's creators. They did not win a contemporary national tournament or title.

Pre-NCAA tournament top-ranked teams

Year	Team	Record
1892–93	Iowa	2–0–1
1893–94	Hiram	1–0
1894–95	Temple	8–3
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

Selections during the post-season tournament era

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 tournament champion for that season