The 1919–20 NCAA men's basketball season began in December 1919, progressed through the regular season, and concluded in March 1920.

Season headlines

* Penn of the

Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League The Eastern Intercollegiate Basketball League was an athletic conference for men's college basketball, beginning with the 1901–02 season and ending with the 1954–55 season. Its membership ranged from four to eight members; all of these te ...

met

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

of the

Big Ten Conference The Big Ten Conference (stylized B1G, formerly the Western Conference and the Big Nine Conference, among others) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference in the United States. Founded as the Intercollegiate Conference of Fa ...

in a three-game national championship playoff, with the first game at Chicago, the second at Penn, and the third at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

. Chicago won the first game 28–24, and Penn the second game, 29-18, after which Penn students celebrated all night and threw bricks and fired shots at policemen. Penn also won the third game, 23-21, to win the championship. On February 25, 1921, the ''

Atlanta Constitution ''The Atlanta Journal-Constitution'' (''AJC'') is an American daily newspaper based in Atlanta metropolitan area, metropolitan area of Atlanta, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the flagship publication of Cox Enterprises. The ''Atlanta Jo ...

'' ran an article by sportswriter

Walter Camp Walter Chauncey Camp (April 7, 1859 – March 14, 1925) was an American college football player and coach, and sports writer known as the "Father of American Football". Among a long list of inventions, he created the sport's line of scrimmage a ...

in which Camp observed that the Chicago-Penn championship series had demonstrated the need for a national standardization of

college basketball College basketball is basketball that is played by teams of Student athlete, student-athletes at universities and colleges. In the Higher education in the United States, United States, colleges and universities are governed by collegiate athle ...

rules and the interpretation of them and expressed the view that no way of determining a national champion yet existed in college basketball. * NYU, led by Howard Cann, won the post-season

Amateur Athletic Union The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an amateur sports organization based in the United States. A multi-sport organization, the AAU is dedicated exclusively to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs. It h ...

(AAU) national championship tournament by defeating

Rutgers Rutgers University ( ), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of three campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College and was aff ...

, 49-24. NYU became the second of only four collegiate teams to win the tournament — in which a mix of collegiate and non-collegiate amateur teams competed — and the only one to do so between

1916 Events Below, the events of the First World War have the "WWI" prefix. January * January 1 – The British Empire, British Royal Army Medical Corps carries out the first successful blood transfusion, using blood that has been stored ...

and

1924 Events January * January 12 – Gopinath Saha shoots Ernest Day, whom he has mistaken for Sir Charles Tegart, the police commissioner of Calcutta, and is arrested soon after. * January 20–January 30, 30 – Kuomintang in Ch ...

. * In February 1943, the

Helms Athletic Foundation The Helms Athletic Foundation, founded in 1936, was a Los Angeles-based organization dedicated to the promotion of athletics and sportsmanship. Paul H. Helms was the organization's founder and benefactor, funding the foundation via his owner ...

retroactively selected Penn as its national champion for the 1919–20 season. * In 1995, the

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 Premo-Porretta Polls are intended to serve collectively as a source of informa ...

retroactively selected Penn as its national champion for the 1919–20 season.

Conference membership changes

Regular season

Conferences

Conference winners

Dartmouth was unable to field a team, so

conference play was informal in 1919–20 and no official champion was declared. However, had a champion been named, Penn would have won the regular-season championship with a 7–1 conference record.

Conference standings

Independents

A total of 130 college teams played as major independents. Among independents that played at least 10 games, (13–0), (14–0), and (17–0) were undefeated, and (22–1) and (22–2) finished with the most wins.

Premo-Porretta Power Poll

St. Bonaventure University St. Bonaventure University is a private university, private Franciscan university in St. Bonaventure, New York. It has 2,760 undergraduate and graduate students. The Order of Friars Minor, Franciscans established the university in 1858. In ath ...

accounting professor Patrick M. Premo and computer programmer Phil Porretta researched teams from the 1895–96 through the 1947–48 seasons, reviewing results, opponents, and margins of victory to create retroactive polls for the seasons predating the debut of the AP Poll. In 1995, they released their retroactive annual rankings as the

. Their poll for the 1919–20 season is below.

Statistical leaders

Award winners

Helms College Basketball All-Americans

The practice of selecting a Consensus

All-American The All-America designation is an annual honor bestowed on outstanding athletes in the United States who are considered to be among the best athletes in their respective sport. Individuals receiving this distinction are typically added to an Al ...

Team did not begin until the 1928–29 season. The

later retroactively selected a list of All-Americans for the 1919–20 season.The Association for Professional Basketball Research "NCAA All-American Teams, 1919–20 to 1998–99"
/ref>

Major player of the year awards

* Helms Foundation Player of the Year: Howard Cann,

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

Coaching changes

A number of teams changed coaches during the season and after it ended.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1919-20 Ncaa Men's Basketball Season