 Bubasc. 1966 | |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1927-01-28)January 28, 1927 Gary, Indiana, U.S. |
| Died | April 16, 2018(2018-04-16) (aged 91) Richmond, Virginia, U.S. |
| Playing career | |
| 1944–1945 | Illinois |
| 1947–1951 | NC State |
| Position | Guard |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1951–1959 | NC State (assistant) |
| 1959–1969 | Duke |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 213–67 |
| Tournaments | 11–4 (NCAA University Division) 1–1 (NIT) |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 3NCAA Final Four (1963, 1964, 1966) 4ACC regular season (1963–1966) 4ACC tournament (1960,1963,1964,1966) | |
| Awards | |
| 3×ACC Coach of the Year (1963, 1964, 1966) North Carolina Sports Hall of Fame (1975) Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame (2002) | |
| College Basketball Hall of Fame Inducted in 2007 | |
Victor Albert Bubas (January 28, 1927 – April 16, 2018) was an Americancollege basketball coach forDuke University and the first commissioner of theSun Belt Conference.[1][2]
Bubas graduated fromGaryLew Wallace High School in 1944. After finishing high school he enrolled at theUniversity of Illinois, playing the1944–45 season for theFighting Illini.[3] He then went on toNorth Carolina State University where he played forEverett Case. Bubas was an All-Southern Conference selection twice. After he graduated in 1951 he stayed on as a freshman coach until 1955 and as a varsity assistant coach until he was hired byDuke University in 1959.
During the 1960s Bubas expanded Duke University's basketball program. He took it from a successful regional program that won a lot of games to a national program.
Bubas is widely credited with pioneering the art of recruiting by targeting players very early and gathering information on them before other coaches had learned of them and would send newspaper clippings of Duke games to prospects. AsNorth Carolina legendary coachDean Smith once stated,
"Vic taught us all how to recruit, we had been starting on prospects in the fall of their senior years while Vic was working on them their junior year. For a while, all of us were trying to catch up with him."
Bubas's tireless efforts paid off as he brought in future All-Americans from all over the country. His first big coup was getting eventual National Player Of The YearArt Heyman to go to Duke. Heyman was originally set to attend North Carolina but a near fight between Heyman's stepfather and UNC head coach Frank McGuire (McGuire took it personally when Heyman's stepfather referred to his program as "a factory") sent Heyman on a different path and Bubas stepped in and was able to convince Heyman to attend Duke.
Another big coup was gettingLexington, Kentucky native and eventual two-time All-AmericanJeff Mullins from theUniversity of Kentucky and legendaryAdolph Rupp. Paired together, Heyman and Mullins formed a devastating duo, reaching the Final Four in 1963 and 1964.
In 1965 Bubas recruited Claudius Claiborne, the first black athlete to play a varsity sport at Duke University.[4]
At the time, freshmen were not allowed to play on the varsity and only the winner of the ACC Tournament could go to the NCAA Tournament. Vic Bubas' Duke teams still flourished. What began during that 1959–60 season grew rapidly over the course of the decade. In that first season, Duke was blown out twice each by Wake Forest and North Carolina. But in the ACC Tournament, Bubas got revenge, stunning 16th-ranked North Carolina and 18th-rankedWake Forest in the title game for Duke's first ACC championship. Duke received the automatic bid in the NCAA tournament, where the Blue Devils won two games before losing to 12th-ranked NYU. It was a very surprising first season for the young coach. As his program progressed, Duke would finish in the AP Top-10 basketball poll in seven of his ten seasons. He led Duke to theNCAAFinal Four three times (1963, 64 and 66). His teams finished first in league play on four occasions and won four ACC championships, competing in the ACC Tournament championship game in eight of his ten seasons. Bubas led Duke to a 213–67 record, which was the 3rd-highest win total in America during the Sixties. His .761 winning percentage ranks tenth all-time among NCAA coaches.
Bubas retired from coaching in 1969 and then served as a Duke administrator, eventually becoming the vice president of the university. In 1976, he became the first commissioner of theSun Belt Conference, a position he held for fourteen years until his retirement. The Sun Belt's all-sports championship trophy, theVic Bubas Cup, is named after him.[5]
In 2007 Bubas was inducted into theNational Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.[6]
Bubas died on the morning of April 16, 2018 at age 91.[1][7]
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duke Blue Devils(Atlantic Coast Conference)(1959–1969) | |||||||||
| 1959–60 | Duke | 17–11 | 7–7 | 4th | NCAA University Division Elite Eight | ||||
| 1960–61 | Duke | 22–6 | 10–4 | 3rd | |||||
| 1961–62 | Duke | 20–5 | 11–3 | 2nd | |||||
| 1962–63 | Duke | 27–3 | 14–0 | 1st | NCAA University Division Final Four | ||||
| 1963–64 | Duke | 26–5 | 13–1 | 1st | NCAA University Division Runner-up | ||||
| 1964–65 | Duke | 20–5 | 11–3 | 1st | |||||
| 1965–66 | Duke | 26–4 | 12–2 | 1st | NCAA University Division Final Four | ||||
| 1966–67 | Duke | 18–9 | 9–3 | 2nd | |||||
| 1967–68 | Duke | 22–6 | 11–3 | 2nd | NIT quarterfinal | ||||
| 1968–69 | Duke | 15–13 | 8–6 | T–3rd | |||||
| Duke: | 213–67 | 106–32 | |||||||
| Total: | 213–67 | ||||||||
National champion Postseason invitational champion | |||||||||