Beginning in the early 1900s, the club's amateur basketball team, the Blue Diamonds, became a nationally known powerhouse, notably after defeating the Buffalo Germans in 1905 - the "de facto" national basketball champion who had won the championship at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Phog Allen was one of the club's team's star players. The Blue Diamonds defeated both the University of Kansas in its 1898-99 inaugural season and the University of Missouri in its 1906-07 inaugural season.