Former University of Oklahoma mentor Billy Tubbs, the man who led the Sooners to the 1988 NCAA Championship match between other achievements, died Sunday at the age of 85.
Tubbs’ family members verified his passing to OU Athletics.
“It is with deep-rooted sadness we announce that our beloved husband, father and grandfather, Billy Tubbs, passed absent Sunday early morning in Norman at the age of 85. He had battled a type of leukemia considering that staying diagnosed in 2015. He died peacefully surrounded by his family members,” a Tubbs relatives statement mentioned in section.
A report in Friday’s Fort Worthy of Star-Telegram reported Tubbs had been placed in hospice treatment in a facility close to Lake Texoma.
Tubbs’ brand name of basketball, dubbed “Billyball”, introduced superior-stress defense and substantial scoring jointly in a way few teams did not replicate.
He created 5 head coaching stops at the school amount: Southwestern University located in central Texas, Lamar University in Beaumont, Oklahoma, TCU and a return trip to Lamar to cap off his coaching career through the early 2000s.
Though with the Sooners, Tubbs served the Sooners qualify for the NCAA Tournament 9 periods in his 14 seasons in Norman. In addition to the Sooners’ look in the 1988 title recreation in opposition to fellow Large Eight rival Kansas, Tubbs took OU to 3 other Sweet Sixteens and two Elite Eights in the course of the 1980s.
Tubbs completed with 609 career wins as a head coach, which is the 37th-most in NCAA background.