New England/Yankee Regular Season Champions
Full list of New England/Yankee Conference men’s basketball regular season champions, including head coach, by year. Bold means team went on to win the NCAA National Championship the same year. The Yankee Conference was born from the New England Conference, which was established in 1923 with five member institutions from the Northeast US: Northeastern, Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Northeastern left in 1945 and the conference sponsored its final football and basketball seasons a year later. The four remaining universities, joined by UMass and Vermont, formed the Yankee Conference and began competition in 1947. Men’s basketball in the Yankee continued through the 1975-76 season, but in 1976 the conference decided to go football only. The conference expanded beyond the Northeast in 1980’s and continued to sponsor football until 1996. The NCAA considers the New England Conference and Yankee Conferences to be separate, but the regular season champions listed below encompass both (NE from 1923-46 and Yankee from 1946-76). UConn won the most titles (22), followed by Rhode Island (21) and UMass (9).
NOTE: There was never a men’s basketball tournament in either conference.
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