I had to laugh while waiting for the UConn/Kansas game to start, the scoreboard at Allen Fieldhouse said that Kansas has 6 National Championships, while winning only four on the court. So I did a little research and found that the Helms Committee was actually formed by a bakery in Kansas, and they awarded "National Championships" retroactively. Hmm, now that is something to hang your hat on.
Helms Titles
- Thread starter Five Nattys
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There wasn’t anything else to really go by at that time.
The important thing to remember is that UConn is gross and your coach has a big wet vagina.
NSFW
Look at that thing. You can practically smell it through the screen.
Look at that thing. You can practically smell it through the screen.
Yeah, but it’s still pretty embarrassing that a blue blood program would not only display those bread banners, but also brag about them.
If UK did that, you would go bonkers on here daily.
If March Madness was, let’s say, an 8 team tournament intended to crown the best basketball team in the nation, I’d be more on board with declaring Helms titles silly nonsense. Since March Madness is meant for ratings and money and Cinderella stories that can be marketed, I’m not sure it’s any less silly than Helms.
How often does the best, or even one of the top 3 teams in the nation win the NCAAT? Every third year or so?
There’s a reason NBA playoffs are series, not single-elimination.
How often does the best, or even one of the top 3 teams in the nation win the NCAAT? Every third year or so?
There’s a reason NBA playoffs are series, not single-elimination.
Damn Brooky, it’s like you forgot 20 years ago even happened. Somewhere up in heaven Hakeem Warrick is asking himself why he even bothered to block that shot. Sad.
If you're claiming Helms titles you should be ashamed
Damn. Quickly read the thread title as “Helms titties.”
More embarrassing than bragging about a regular season win vs the national champion for two years? That’s Missouri-level shit. Actually, even they probably wouldn’t do that.
No one at KU equates Helms with tourney titles. They’re probably included for recruiting purposes.
You think a tournament is as ridiculous as the owner of a bread company using his opinion to determine a champion? Yikes.
No idea wtf you’re talking about, but it sounds like a very petty reach.
For someone that doesn't equate helms titles with tourney titles, you sure seem to defend the fact that KU displays the banners.
College football crowned a champion for the first 60+ years via a poll. From 1936-1998, AP/Coaches poll decided who the "best" team in CFB was. Do you think Alabama should be able to count all those titles in football, prior to the BCS/CFP? If so, then why cant schools in basketball claim a title that was awarded, NOT CLAIMED, prior to a tournament format?
Why? Alabama, USC, Michigan, Notre Dames, etc.....won titles via a poll as well. Twelve of Alabam's 16 "titles" were awarded, i.e. AP Poll, Coaches poll, FWIW poll, etc....
What is the difference? I don't see anyone disputing Bear Bryants 6 national titles,
Who determined the champion in college football all those years? That's the issue.
The helms banners are fraudulent, because who made this guy the authority on who the best teams were each year? Seems like it's just some random dude determining who should be the champion.
If you tell me that a peanut butter factory owner determined all those football champions, then no, Alabama and Michigan shouldn't claim them.
Helms titles are a joke. Not legitimate. College football had a different system for crowning champions. Basketball started crowning championships in 1939. Anything before that is nonsense.
And people absolutely do take issue with Alabama's title claims. Lol are you serious with that
It’s sports so it’s all inherently silly. The point was more so that the NCAAT is expressly not set up to determine the best college basketball team.
Helms was basically the AP Poll of the time, sort of. Like I said, there wasn’t much/anything else to go by, so we just pretend the games never happened and nobody could make an educated guess at the best team?
Team A: 30 wins, a bunch against top 25 teams. Their PG gets diarrhea against South Montana State Tech. SMSTU gets hot from 3 and hits 50/45 threes from halfcourt. Team A loses.
Team B: Barely above .500. Gets hot in the conference tourney. Doesn’t play anybody better than a 3 seed in the NCAAT. Gets a shiny trophy, confetti shower, blowjobs from all the honeys at the hotel.
Team B is the better college basketball team? That’s not silly?
This is the first time I've ever heard that Helms was the AP poll of it's time. Do you mean like a legit AP poll, or was it just a guy that self proclaimed himself as the AP poll guy?
Was he the actual official poll voter?
Helms titles are not legit. /thread
I’m not going to profess myself an expert. I Googled a bit. It wasn’t just one baker doing the picking. The picking was done retroactively. There wasn’t an AP Poll or equivalent at the time the games were played (we’re talking about 1939 and earlier).
It was a few guys who liked amateur sports a lot. To be into amateur college athletics at that time you had to be a gigantic nerd for it. Like the first dudes buying comic books. Huge dorks, pretty devoted to something nobody cared about.
Anyway, it seems like their approach was the same approach an AP writer would take. Look at the teams with only a couple or a few losses, see who they played, figure out if they beat anybody good or lost to anybody bad, rank, pick a winner.
Yeah, you read Wikipedia, which is what I just did.
This was just group of guys that formed a fan group and went back in time and made picks on who they thought was the best team each year.
From what I can tell, none of these guys knows squat bout basketball, they were just fans, like us. It’s all opinions by non basketball guys. So basically, it's fake.
Wiki link:
Helms Athletic Foundation - Wikipedia
Helms Athletic Foundation - Wikipedia
Yeah, you read Wikipedia, which is what I just did.
This was just group of guys that formed a fan group and went back in time and made picks on who they thought was the best team each year.
From what I can tell, none of these guys knows squat bout basketball, they were just fans, like us. It’s all opinions by non basketball guys. So basically, it's fake.
Wiki link:
Helms Athletic Foundation - Wikipedia
Helms Athletic Foundation - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
I’m not convinced they were non-basketball guys. But I’m also not convinced you need to be. Like, if you handed me the women’s college field hockey results from last season, absent a tournament and without rankings, just a cursory knowledge of which schools are bigger and the schedule results, there’s a good chance I could pick the best one.
We put faith in writers nowadays. Writers. Dweebs in glasses typing words like they matter. Same same
I would like to see a playoff series, at least in the final four, if not elite 8, any team can have a bad night. Now that does not touch the whole field, but better.
The best, and perhaps only, benefit of conference realignment eventually ending up as a handful of super conferences united under some NCAA alternative is a tournament/playoff with fewer teams and, hopefully, series play instead of single elimination. Even double elimination would be an improvement.
As things are now, March Madness is too exciting and too much of a money-maker to ever change. If anything, it will get bigger. I won’t pretend I don’t love March Madness. It’s one of the best times of the year. It’s just not a good way to pick a champion and clearly not designed for the purpose of nailing down the best college basketball team. If you want to find the best team, maybe leave the ones with double digit losses out of it.
I think I’ve said plenty of times that I wouldn’t hang them. I’ve also said it’s stupid to make a big deal of it and bring it up every day.
You realize those banners were hung a long time ago, right? And that no one currently at KU was part of the process to hang them? Are they supposed to take them down because some Kentucky fans don’t approve? 🤣
Yeah, but what you do on the court matters and who you play matters too. Some teams match up better with others.
If this was a group of coaches, that would be different, but this was just a bunch of regular dudes and their opinions. It’s fake and that’s not how you determine a champion. They were self appointed voters.
If a team like Vanderbilt, or WASU wanted to display them, fine, but as a blue blood, you can’t hang those.
The helms banners are brought up every day??? Oh goodie, another exaggeration.
Cool, the banners were hung many years ago, but KU still says they have 6 nattys and some of your fellow fans brag about those banners
I don’t think I’ve seen a single KU fan brag about Helms, but okay…
So we just pretend basketball didn’t happen back then? If you don’t have a champion you didn’t have a season.
Even if this was just some random dude with hardly any knowledge of basketball, he/they were still looking at record and strength of opponents. It wasn’t an arbitrary selection based on feelings.
I think we fundamentally disagree about the qualifications necessary to rank teams against each other. I don’t see any extra value added by coaches, which is why nobody puts any more stock in the Coaches Poll than the AP Poll. You don’t need to know the nuances of the sport to assess which team performed better. You would if you were trying to determine future matchup results, but that’s not what Helms was doing.
To retroactively pick a champ, you just need schedule results and a surface level knowledge of stats. Pretty quickly, it becomes apparent who the good teams were, who beat the good teams, and how often they beat them.
I understand arguments that Helms could have been wrong between 2 or 3 teams. So be it. It’s the best we have to go by at that time and I think it’s worth noting which teams were the best when basketball was being played; otherwise, why play? I don’t think a former coach or a basketball writer would be more qualified to pick the tiebreakers between the maybe 2 or 3 teams Helms was ultimately picking between.
If a group of sports writers got together now to redo the Helms titles, would that be more legitimate? If yes, who’s to say their picks would be much different. What info would they have that Helms didn’t? If no, then we’re just saying basketball was played but nobody was the best. That’s borderline un-American lol.
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We definitely disagree on it, but I'm sure Exitflagger will agree with you, since his school proudly displays them.
Times were different back then, college sports simply didn't have tournaments until the late 30's, but you can't just sit there in 1943 and go back and start awarding banners to teams like that. That’s just some amateurish playground stuff.
But, to each his own. Seems fake as hell to me.
Any examples of bragging or are you just making things up again?
Meanwhile, I could find hundreds of examples of you guys bragging about a January win in AFH, even after they won the title. 🤣
How many KU fans do you see bragging about winning in Rupp? Self’s won there 3 out of 4 times. It’s called acting like you’ve been there.
You definitely could not; not without knowing anything about the competition. If they did this for football this year then James Madison would win it for some people.
Wins in AFH are much harder to get and that was a dominant win. You’re damn right, UK fans should brag about that.
Shit, UK loses several games a year in Rupp anymore. Evansville, Richmond, UAB, Georgia, UNCW… it's not that big of a deal.
Next dumb statement, I'm ready.
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