How the belt works
A lineal championship works like a boxing title: to become the champion, you have to beat the champion. The College Basketball Belt is one title, passed from team to team, game by game, for more than seventy-five years.
The rules
- Where it starts. Our game-by-game record begins with the 1949–50 season, so the belt starts with the reigning national champion: Kentucky, who beat Oklahoma A&M 46–36 in the 1949 NCAA final.
- Beat the holder, take the belt. Every game counts: regular season, conference tournaments, the NCAA tournament, the NIT and the other postseason events. Home, away or neutral.
- Division I only. Both teams have to be in Division I that season (the major-college level before 1973). A holder that loses to a non-Division I team keeps the belt, and those games aren't title defenses.
- No ties. Basketball plays overtime until someone wins, so every belt game has a winner.
- If a holder leaves Division I, the belt goes back to the most recent earlier holder that is still playing, the same rule the College Football Belt uses. It hasn't happened yet.
The three rulesets, side by side
The College Football Belt, the College Basketball Belt and the pro-league belts on Belt Holders run on the same idea and differ only where the sports do: ties, draws and shootouts, who counts as a league member, and what happens when a holder stops playing.
| College Football Belt | College Basketball Belt · this site | Belt Holders (pro leagues) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where it starts | College football's first game: Rutgers over Princeton, 6–4, on November 6, 1869. | The reigning national champion when the game-by-game record begins: Kentucky for 1949–50; Texas for the women's belt in 1986–87. | Each league's first game on record, from the NHL's first night in 1917 to the Premier League's 1888 start. |
| Which games count | Every game, bowls and the playoff included. From 1978 on, only games between two Division I teams. | Every Division I game: regular season, conference tournaments, the NCAA tournament and the other postseason events. A loss to a non-Division I team doesn't move it. | Regular season and playoffs. Preseason, exhibitions and cup competitions don't count. |
| Ties and draws | A tie kept the belt with the holder (there hasn't been one since overtime arrived in 1996). | No ties: basketball plays overtime until someone wins. | A tie or a draw is a successful defense. Overtime and shootout wins are wins; a penalty shootout decides a knockout game. |
| When the holder doesn't play | The belt waits: a bye, an opted-out bowl or a canceled season leaves it where it is, offseason included. | The belt waits through the offseason with the holder. | The belt is frozen until the holder plays again, even when it missed the playoffs. |
| When the holder stops playing | If a holder drops football or leaves Division I, the belt goes back to the most recent earlier holder still playing. | If a holder leaves Division I, the belt goes back to the most recent earlier holder still playing. | A folded franchise, or a club relegated out of the league, vacates the belt to the most recent earlier holder still in the league. |
| Moves and renames | Programs don't move; a rename is the same program. | Same: a rename is the same program. | The belt follows the franchise through relocations and renames (the Rams from Cleveland to St. Louis to Los Angeles). |
Sources
Results come from CollegeBasketballData.com and are updated automatically every few hours during the season. For 1949–50 through 1999–2000, neutral-site games that data set is missing (holiday and conference tournaments) come from Prof. John Trono's NCAA Men's Basketball Scores Archive at St. Michael's College. Spot a missing or wrong game? Email hello@collegebasketballbelt.com.