Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? That’s OK: UA didn’t either
Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? The university didn’t either.
Old newspaper clippings and UA yearbooks chronicle a 100-plus season history that now lies in the hands of Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats as he looks to win the program’s first NCAA Tournament championship. That tournament didn’t commence until 1939 and was far from the spectacle of today’s March Madness.
Decades ago, a couple of sports junkies − a professor and a computer programmer − got together to dedicate their spare time to determining who would have cut down championship nets before the NCAA Tournament began.
The 1929-1930 Alabama team was one of them.
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll was created by Pat Premo, an accounting professor at St. Bonaventure University, and Phil Porretta, a computer programmer, and first released to the public in 1995.
Thirty years later, The Tuscaloosa News dug in to learn the story of how those pre-tournament college basketball national championships were retroactively decided, and what put the Crimson Tide in that company.
Premo died in 2021 and Porretta two years later. Their vast research uncovered long-lost results from games against AAU and YMCA teams that college media guides around the country were missing.
“It was a lifetime,” Premo’s wife, Kathleen, said of the research efforts.
An avid list-maker, Premo would compile data for players in the games forgotten by the record books to project how they would’ve performed against each other. Basically, Premo and Porretta were ideating the earliest forms of fantasy sports before it became a craze.
BASKETBALL
Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? That’s OK: UA didn’t either
Portrait of Emilee SmarrEmilee Smarr
Tuscaloosa News
Alabama’s 1929-30 basketball team went undefeated and won the Southern Conference championship.
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll, a retroactive ranking system, named Alabama the national champion for that season.
The ranking system was created by Pat Premo and Phil Porretta, who used statistical analysis to compare teams from different eras.
Alabama’s athletic department does not officially recognize the 1929-30 team as national champions.
Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? The university didn’t either.
Old newspaper clippings and UA yearbooks chronicle a 100-plus season history that now lies in the hands of Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats as he looks to win the program’s first NCAA Tournament championship. That tournament didn’t commence until 1939 and was far from the spectacle of today’s March Madness.
Decades ago, a couple of sports junkies − a professor and a computer programmer − got together to dedicate their spare time to determining who would have cut down championship nets before the NCAA Tournament began.
The 1929-1930 Alabama team was one of them.
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll was created by Pat Premo, an accounting professor at St. Bonaventure University, and Phil Porretta, a computer programmer, and first released to the public in 1995.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Thirty years later, The Tuscaloosa News dug in to learn the story of how those pre-tournament college basketball national championships were retroactively decided, and what put the Crimson Tide in that company.
The story behind Alabama basketball’s mythical national championship
Alabama basketball’s 1929-30 team brought the Crimson Tide its first regular season and tournament titles, as well as a forgotten national championship.
Premo died in 2021 and Porretta two years later. Their vast research uncovered long-lost results from games against AAU and YMCA teams that college media guides around the country were missing.
“It was a lifetime,” Premo’s wife, Kathleen, said of the research efforts.
An avid list-maker, Premo would compile data for players in the games forgotten by the record books to project how they would’ve performed against each other. Basically, Premo and Porretta were ideating the earliest forms of fantasy sports before it became a craze.
Get the SEC Unfiltered newsletter in your inbox.
Everything you need to know about the Southeastern Conference.
Most of those writings and rosters are gone now. At least on Premo’s end.
“He had a lot of information. But, you know, nobody seemed interested. So, all the work he had done, I’ve tossed most of it,” Kathleen said. “It was just so massive, his collection; he just loved to deep to dive into the history of places like Alabama and Kentucky.”
Had they not “run into a brick wall” in their research, there would probably be a list of Premo-Porretta early women’s basketball national champions, too, according to Kathleen.
BASKETBALL
Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? That’s OK: UA didn’t either
Portrait of Emilee SmarrEmilee Smarr
Tuscaloosa News
Alabama’s 1929-30 basketball team went undefeated and won the Southern Conference championship.
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll, a retroactive ranking system, named Alabama the national champion for that season.
The ranking system was created by Pat Premo and Phil Porretta, who used statistical analysis to compare teams from different eras.
Alabama’s athletic department does not officially recognize the 1929-30 team as national champions.
Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? The university didn’t either.
Old newspaper clippings and UA yearbooks chronicle a 100-plus season history that now lies in the hands of Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats as he looks to win the program’s first NCAA Tournament championship. That tournament didn’t commence until 1939 and was far from the spectacle of today’s March Madness.
Decades ago, a couple of sports junkies − a professor and a computer programmer − got together to dedicate their spare time to determining who would have cut down championship nets before the NCAA Tournament began.
The 1929-1930 Alabama team was one of them.
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll was created by Pat Premo, an accounting professor at St. Bonaventure University, and Phil Porretta, a computer programmer, and first released to the public in 1995.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Thirty years later, The Tuscaloosa News dug in to learn the story of how those pre-tournament college basketball national championships were retroactively decided, and what put the Crimson Tide in that company.
The story behind Alabama basketball’s mythical national championship
Alabama basketball’s 1929-30 team brought the Crimson Tide its first regular season and tournament titles, as well as a forgotten national championship.
Premo died in 2021 and Porretta two years later. Their vast research uncovered long-lost results from games against AAU and YMCA teams that college media guides around the country were missing.
“It was a lifetime,” Premo’s wife, Kathleen, said of the research efforts.
An avid list-maker, Premo would compile data for players in the games forgotten by the record books to project how they would’ve performed against each other. Basically, Premo and Porretta were ideating the earliest forms of fantasy sports before it became a craze.
Get the SEC Unfiltered newsletter in your inbox.
Everything you need to know about the Southeastern Conference.
Most of those writings and rosters are gone now. At least on Premo’s end.
“He had a lot of information. But, you know, nobody seemed interested. So, all the work he had done, I’ve tossed most of it,” Kathleen said. “It was just so massive, his collection; he just loved to deep to dive into the history of places like Alabama and Kentucky.”
Had they not “run into a brick wall” in their research, there would probably be a list of Premo-Porretta early women’s basketball national champions, too, according to Kathleen.
Oftentimes, when Pat wasn’t hunkered down in his dimly-lit, dusty basement office, quests for research would become family road trips for the Premos. With no classes to teach, summer usually brought the most progress.
“I don’t know what he was even researching, but we had to drive to Kentucky so he could check on something that was there,” Kathleen recalled. Her husband was a man of many interests, so the visit could’ve just as easily been for football or his other love, horse racing, as for basketball research.
Premo’s son, Daniel, is a web developer and previously worked for Turner Broadcasting and “Sports Illustrated,” taking part in revamping the technology behind the NBA Draft. But it’s not because he was ever inspired by his father’s techie pal Porretta or the old friends’ love for basketball.
Daniel didn’t know that his father’s works were chronicled in ESPN’s “Encyclopedia of College Basketball,” let alone that they even existed, until he looked up his dad on Wikipedia after his death.
Neither he nor his mother ever met Porretta, nor found out how Phil managed to connect with him in California all the way from New York in a time without networking apps like LinkedIn.
“We still have this house in New York, and I was there in the summer, and (Phil) called one time to talk to Pat, and I said, ‘Oh, you know, he just died,’ so that was the only time I spoke with him,” said Kathleen, who now resides in Brookhaven, Georgia.
The first time Kathleen and Daniel had a conversation about Premo’s historical basketball work came when the two discussed speaking with The Tuscaloosa News for this story.
“He really enjoyed it, and it was over the top,” Kathleen said.
Determining retroactive national titles had been done before. The Helms Athletic Foundation, an organization out of Los Angeles dedicated to promoting athletics and sportsmanship, released its own list in 1943 as determined by Bill Schroeder, who determined national champions from the 1900–01 through 1941–42 seasons.
The Helms foundation in 1943 published a list of retroactive champions that recognized Pittsburgh, not Alabama, as its national champion for the 1929-30 season.
Premo and Porretta took the exercise further, using data they collected to pit teams against each other and figure out which would have on if they had they actually played. After ranking 15 teams for the 1895–96 season to determine a mythical champ, Premo and Porretta expanded their field to 20 teams for each season from 1897 through 1909, increasing again to 25 teams from 1910 through 1948.
The case for Alabama basketball’s 1929-30 team
Alabama’s 1929-30 team made its case on the court: Under coach Hank Crisp, the Crimson Tide went 20-0 for its only undefeated basketball season to date.
In Tuscaloosa, 1930 was a big year. Iconic Denny Chimes was dedicated on campus in honor of UA president Mike Denny that May. That fall, Alabama football would go 10-0 for the program’s third claimed national title, sealed with a 24-0 victory over Washington State in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1931.
In 1929-30, Alabama basketball also won its first regular-season and league tournament championships as members of the Southern Conference, taking wins over Clemson, Georgia and Tennessee leading up to the title game in Atlanta.
The Crimson Tide features the top scoring offense in the country today, averaging 91.2 points per game. Back in those days, football scores were more common on the hardwood.
Alabama dealt the Birmingham Boys Club a 38-9 defeat in mid-December 1929, also beating Birmingham YMCA and Cramton Lumber Company on the same day, all in Birmingham. UA hung a season-high 40 points on Sewanee in February.
On the season, Alabama averaged 36.3 points. By comparison, All-American guard Mark Sears has scored 30-plus points three times this season.
Alabama allowed an average of just 19.75 points over its 20 games.
BASKETBALL
Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? That’s OK: UA didn’t either
Portrait of Emilee SmarrEmilee Smarr
Tuscaloosa News
Alabama’s 1929-30 basketball team went undefeated and won the Southern Conference championship.
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll, a retroactive ranking system, named Alabama the national champion for that season.
The ranking system was created by Pat Premo and Phil Porretta, who used statistical analysis to compare teams from different eras.
Alabama’s athletic department does not officially recognize the 1929-30 team as national champions.
Did you know Alabama basketball won a national championship? The university didn’t either.
Old newspaper clippings and UA yearbooks chronicle a 100-plus season history that now lies in the hands of Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats as he looks to win the program’s first NCAA Tournament championship. That tournament didn’t commence until 1939 and was far from the spectacle of today’s March Madness.
Decades ago, a couple of sports junkies − a professor and a computer programmer − got together to dedicate their spare time to determining who would have cut down championship nets before the NCAA Tournament began.
The 1929-1930 Alabama team was one of them.
The Premo-Porretta Power Poll was created by Pat Premo, an accounting professor at St. Bonaventure University, and Phil Porretta, a computer programmer, and first released to the public in 1995.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
Thirty years later, The Tuscaloosa News dug in to learn the story of how those pre-tournament college basketball national championships were retroactively decided, and what put the Crimson Tide in that company.
The story behind Alabama basketball’s mythical national championship
Alabama basketball’s 1929-30 team brought the Crimson Tide its first regular season and tournament titles, as well as a forgotten national championship.
Premo died in 2021 and Porretta two years later. Their vast research uncovered long-lost results from games against AAU and YMCA teams that college media guides around the country were missing.
“It was a lifetime,” Premo’s wife, Kathleen, said of the research efforts.
An avid list-maker, Premo would compile data for players in the games forgotten by the record books to project how they would’ve performed against each other. Basically, Premo and Porretta were ideating the earliest forms of fantasy sports before it became a craze.
Get the SEC Unfiltered newsletter in your inbox.
Everything you need to know about the Southeastern Conference.
Most of those writings and rosters are gone now. At least on Premo’s end.
“He had a lot of information. But, you know, nobody seemed interested. So, all the work he had done, I’ve tossed most of it,” Kathleen said. “It was just so massive, his collection; he just loved to deep to dive into the history of places like Alabama and Kentucky.”
Had they not “run into a brick wall” in their research, there would probably be a list of Premo-Porretta early women’s basketball national champions, too, according to Kathleen.
Oftentimes, when Pat wasn’t hunkered down in his dimly-lit, dusty basement office, quests for research would become family road trips for the Premos. With no classes to teach, summer usually brought the most progress.
“I don’t know what he was even researching, but we had to drive to Kentucky so he could check on something that was there,” Kathleen recalled. Her husband was a man of many interests, so the visit could’ve just as easily been for football or his other love, horse racing, as for basketball research.
Premo’s son, Daniel, is a web developer and previously worked for Turner Broadcasting and “Sports Illustrated,” taking part in revamping the technology behind the NBA Draft. But it’s not because he was ever inspired by his father’s techie pal Porretta or the old friends’ love for basketball.
Daniel didn’t know that his father’s works were chronicled in ESPN’s “Encyclopedia of College Basketball,” let alone that they even existed, until he looked up his dad on Wikipedia after his death.
Neither he nor his mother ever met Porretta, nor found out how Phil managed to connect with him in California all the way from New York in a time without networking apps like LinkedIn.
“We still have this house in New York, and I was there in the summer, and (Phil) called one time to talk to Pat, and I said, ‘Oh, you know, he just died,’ so that was the only time I spoke with him,” said Kathleen, who now resides in Brookhaven, Georgia.
The first time Kathleen and Daniel had a conversation about Premo’s historical basketball work came when the two discussed speaking with The Tuscaloosa News for this story.
“He really enjoyed it, and it was over the top,” Kathleen said.
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Ranking the top 10 wins in Alabama basketball history
Mythical national championships and their history
Determining retroactive national titles had been done before. The Helms Athletic Foundation, an organization out of Los Angeles dedicated to promoting athletics and sportsmanship, released its own list in 1943 as determined by Bill Schroeder, who determined national champions from the 1900–01 through 1941–42 seasons.
The Helms foundation in 1943 published a list of retroactive champions that recognized Pittsburgh, not Alabama, as its national champion for the 1929-30 season.
Premo and Porretta took the exercise further, using data they collected to pit teams against each other and figure out which would have on if they had they actually played. After ranking 15 teams for the 1895–96 season to determine a mythical champ, Premo and Porretta expanded their field to 20 teams for each season from 1897 through 1909, increasing again to 25 teams from 1910 through 1948.
The case for Alabama basketball’s 1929-30 team
Alabama’s 1929-30 team made its case on the court: Under coach Hank Crisp, the Crimson Tide went 20-0 for its only undefeated basketball season to date.
In Tuscaloosa, 1930 was a big year. Iconic Denny Chimes was dedicated on campus in honor of UA president Mike Denny that May. That fall, Alabama football would go 10-0 for the program’s third claimed national title, sealed with a 24-0 victory over Washington State in the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1931.
In 1929-30, Alabama basketball also won its first regular-season and league tournament championships as members of the Southern Conference, taking wins over Clemson, Georgia and Tennessee leading up to the title game in Atlanta.
The Crimson Tide features the top scoring offense in the country today, averaging 91.2 points per game. Back in those days, football scores were more common on the hardwood.
Alabama dealt the Birmingham Boys Club a 38-9 defeat in mid-December 1929, also beating Birmingham YMCA and Cramton Lumber Company on the same day, all in Birmingham. UA hung a season-high 40 points on Sewanee in February.
On the season, Alabama averaged 36.3 points. By comparison, All-American guard Mark Sears has scored 30-plus points three times this season.
Alabama allowed an average of just 19.75 points over its 20 games.
As UA’s Corolla yearbook for 1930 went to press, staff learned Alabama had won the Southern Conference tournament by defeating Duke 31-24 in the final game, which ended up being what the yearbook called a “fitting climax to a brilliant season without defeat.”
The season also saw the program’s first All-American, James Marcus Hood, who was also a member of Alabama’s national champion football team that year with basketball teammate Earl Smith, once a football team captain.
