The Holy Land of Hoops

There is discussion on one of our fan sites about some championship banners hanging at Hinkle, citing National Championships in 1924 and 1929. Does BU recognize their program as Nat. champs those years and how/why? Just looking for some back story from fans who actually might know. Thanks in advance.

Not a Butler fan, but one of those was the Amateur Athletic Union championship that they won vs. the KC Athletic Club - College basketball was like the Wild West in those days.

Not a butler fan, but I do know how to use Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Bulldogs_men's_basketball

Those two banners represent when Butler was the Pre-tournament Helms champions in 1924, and 1929.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythical_national_championship

"The national championship of collegiate basketball that is officially recognized by the main governing body for collegiate athletics in the United States, the NCAA, has been awarded to the champion of an annual national post-season tournament run by the NCAA since 1939. Prior to the advent of national post-season college basketball tournaments, beginning with the NAIA national men's basketball championship in 1937, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) in 1938[3] and the NCAA Tournament in 1939, various third-party organizations selected basketball national champions in a manner similar to the selection of national champions for college football described above.

Notable among the pre-tournament era selections, and listed in the Official NCAA Men's Basketball Records Book, are those from the Helms Athletic Foundation.[5] The Helms Foundation named a national champion from 1901 to 1982, with its selections from 1901-1941 being awarded retroactively. The Helms champion, for the years in which the NIT and NCAA post-season tournaments were played, matched the winners of the 1938 NIT and 1939 NIT, as well as the winners for all years of the NCAA Tournament except for 1939, 1940, 1944 and 1954.[6]"

GumbyDamnit! wrote:There is discussion on one of our fan sites about some championship banners hanging at Hinkle, citing National Championships in 1924 and 1929. Does BU recognize their program as Nat. champs those years and how/why? Just looking for some back story from fans who actually might know. Thanks in advance.

Not a Butler fan, but I think it has to do with this:

Helms Athletic Foundation Wikipedia Page wrote:The Helms Athletic Foundation was an athletic foundation based in Los Angeles, California, U.S., founded in 1936 by Bill Schroeder and Paul Helms. It put together a panel of experts[citation needed] to select National Champion teams and make All-America team selections in a number of college sports including football and basketball. The panel met annually[citation needed] to vote on a National Champion until 1982 and retroactively ranked football teams dating back to 1883 and basketball back to 1901. The Helms Foundation also operated a Hall of Fame for both college sports. Selections prior to 1936 are often disputed as many of them are not derived from actual head-to-head competition and rely on historical documents to interpret champions.

Butler Bulldogs basketball Wikipedia Page wrote:Pre-tournament Helms champions
1924, 1929

Guessing that if there actually are such banners, it's Butler deciding to claim that some historical documents suggest that the team was named Helms Foundation champions in those two years. FWIW, the Helms Wikipedia page lists North Carolina as champion in 1924 and Montana State in 1929.

It'd be pretty sweet if you could use something like to declare yourself past national champions. The Creighton Wikipedia Page has the following awesome entry:

The 1918–19 Creighton men’s basketball team capped its second straight undefeated season by winning a two-game series against the U.S. Army’s Camp Grant. By winning the series, the March 20, 1919, Creighton Chronicle reported, “the Creighton team is recognized as the champions of the west, not only among the college teams, but professionals.” Dr. Floyd Paynter took the success one step further when he wrote in the March 1934 Creighton Alumnus, “After this great season we claimed the basketball championship of the nation for Creighton University.

So yeah -- Creighton was National Champions in 1919. Butler in 1924 and 1929. Welcome to the new BIG EAST!

Butler does it because they had the best 11-7 team in the country in 1924, and North Carolina's claim to that National Title is bogus. They were only 26-0 for goodness sakes.

In 1929, they actually probably had a better claim to the title than Montana State, since they beat Pitt, who beat the Bobcats in that same year and were 17-2, but it was all so subjective back then. Prohibition was going on, Jim Burr was in the prime of his officiating career, and people were far more worried about where they were going to grab their next bottle of booze than who was the college basketball champion.

Irishdawg wrote:In 1929, they actually probably had a better claim to the title than Montana State, since they beat Pitt, who beat the Bobcats in that same year and were 17-2, but it was all so subjective back then. Prohibition was going on, Jim Burr was in the prime of his officiating career, and people were far more worried about where they were going to grab their next bottle of booze than who was the college basketball champion.

Gotta admit - I chuckled at the Jim Burr line.

1924 the AAU selected Butler as National Champions.

1929 Butler was awarded the John J. McDevitt Trophy, a national championship designation by the Veteran Athletes of Philadelphia.

Bluejay wrote:

Irishdawg wrote:In 1929, they actually probably had a better claim to the title than Montana State, since they beat Pitt, who beat the Bobcats in that same year and were 17-2, but it was all so subjective back then. Prohibition was going on, Jim Burr was in the prime of his officiating career, and people were far more worried about where they were going to grab their next bottle of booze than who was the college basketball champion.

Gotta admit - I chuckled at the Jim Burr line.

Lol me too.