Here you go:

Posted on: December 8, 2021 at 16:48:36 CT

- Great Moment in ku Tradition: ku wins its first 'National Title' in 1922

The title was actually awarded to them 21 years later by the Helms Bakery Company by a former semi-pro baseball player and sports collector named Bill Schroeder. Schroeder picked only 1 team for each season and gave no support or justification for his selection of teams and players he likely never witnessed to evaluate. However, it is important to note that this ku team held a reunion every 5 years and as detailed in Phog Allen’s biography the players invited Bill Schroeder to their anniversary reunions. ku would finish the year at 16-2 overall, tied atop the Mo Valley standings with MU who went 16-1 overall. It was ku’s first Mo Valley title since 1915, it was MU’s 4th in the prior 5 years. The two teams split the head to head contests by an equal margin of 10 points, the Tigers lone loss by far the season low in output in terms of points. MU had defeated ku in 20 of the prior 24 meetings and as Phog Allen wrote in his autobiography about the ku upset: “We were hoping and planning for breaks which might turn our misfortunes into a startling victorious upset…The Missourians had not lost a game. Kansas was not conceded a chance by well-informed dopesters. The Missouri Tigers were big and powerful. The Kansas Jayhawkers were shorter and lighter. They had a great outfit and really looked like much the better team.” Basketball historians Patrick Premo and Phil Porretta both crunched large amounts of data now available in the modern age to compile retroactive rankings for the season, and independently both selected MU as the nation’s top team in 1922 for the second year in a row.

- Great Moments in ku Tradition: ku wins its second 'National Title' in 1923

Similarly, this was awarded 20 years later by Bill Schroeder of the Helms Bakery. Again, this 17-1 ku team differs from the selections of both Patrick Premo and Phil Porretta who chose 17-0 Army because they had access to more information.

- Great Moments in ku Tradition: ku wins its first NCAA title in 1952

This was accomplished almost solely on the back of Clyde Lovellete, who is still the only player in history to lead the nation in scoring and win an NCAA title in the same season. He was named National Player of the Year for the 8th ranked jayhawks and captured NCAA Tourney MOP honors by scoring 31, 44, 33 and 33 in his four games, and set tournament records for points (141), rebounds (69), field goals (53) and free throws (35). In 1948 Lovellette, who was from Indiana, had already committed to home state IU. He went home to pick up some clothes and was next seen in Lawrence signing to play for the jayhawks who were coming off an impressive 9-15 record. As told to Ted O’Leary of the KC Star by Phog Allen and detailed in the ESPN Encyclopedia of Basketball: "There was nothing irregular in my recruitment of Wilt Chamberlain. But Clyde Lovellette - well, that's another story."

- Great Moments in ku Tradition: ku wins its 2nd NCAA title in 1988

After earning a 6 seed in the NCAA tournament for their 3rd place finish in the Big 8, being unranked the final 8 polls of the season and never entering the top 15, ku’s bracket fell apart and they faced an 11, 14, 7, and 4 seed on their path to a surprising Final Four. From their they had the benefit of essentially playing home games in Kansas City, and they rode the superstar play of Danny Manning (who decided to attend ku on the strength of their giving his father a fake job on the coaching staff) to the NCAA title. Immediately afterwards, ku would become the only men’s basketball program in NCAA history barred from defending their title by being placed on major probation. It would be the basketball program’s 2nd example of what is now defined by the NCAA as a ‘repeat violator’ for additional violations within a 5 year window, subject to the infamous NCAA death penalty except in cases determined to be ‘unique’ in nature. From the NCAA report: “the university's disturbing failure to exercise appropriate institutional control over the men's intercollegiate basketball program. The university appeared before the committee in previously in connection with violations …and has had subsequent communications with the committee regarding the university's athletics administration. Although the university argued that it adopted procedures to ensure that all of its athletics programs comply with the terms of NCAA legislation, the violations found in this case indicate that these procedures were not implemented in the men's basketball program in a manner that accomplished this result. The committee also was troubled by statements by the university in its official response to the NCAA's letter of official inquiry and during the hearing before the committee that clear and admitted violations of NCAA regulations somehow should not be considered violations. Such statements diminished the committee's sense of confidence that the university was prepared to take institutional action to discipline individuals for whom it was responsible and who were involved in NCAA violations.”

- Great Moment in ku Tradition: ku wins its 3rd NCAA title in 2008

Despite zero wins over teams in the top 25 in Pomeroy’s rankings in the regular season and being seeded behind Texas in its own conference tournament, ku earns a #1 seed in the NCAA tournament and faces a 16, 8, 12, and 10 seed in route to the Final Four. There it is the beneficiary of a Memphis collapse to become the first men’s basketball program in NCAA history to win a title while on major probation. It is later revealed that per NCAA guidelines, ku’s leading and 3rd leading scorers in the title game were ineligible players meaning all games they participated in should have been vacated. ku’s top 6 players in the game include 2 ineligible players, a players whose father has a token job on the staff, a player who received over $5,000 in improper benefits during his recruitment, and a player who was accused of a sexual assault early in the year but which would not be made public until after the season.