Victor Albert Bubas (January 28, 1927 – April 16, 2018) was an American
college basketball
In United States colleges, top-tier basketball is governed by collegiate athletic bodies including National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), the United States Collegiate Athleti ...
coach for
Duke University and the first commissioner of the
Sun Belt Conference.
[''The News & Observer'', ''Vic Bubas, coach of Duke's first ACC champion basketball team, dies at 91'' by Steve Wiseman, April 16, 2018](_blank)
Retrieved Apr. 16, 2018.[Legacy.com, Woody Funeral Home – Huguenot Chapel, Victor Bubas Obituary, April 17, 2018](_blank)
Retrieved Apr. 23, 2018.
Early life
Bubas graduated from
Gary Lew Wallace High School
Lew Wallace High School was a four-year (9-12) public high school of the Gary Community School Corporation in Gary, Indiana, United States.
Staff
The faculty included nearly 65 teachers.
History
In 1926 the 45th Avenue School of Gary, Indi ...
in 1944. After finishing high school he enrolled at the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
, playing the
1944–45 season for the
Fighting Illini
The Illinois Fighting Illini () are the intercollegiate athletic teams that represent the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The university offers 10 men's and 11 women's varsity sports.
The University operates a number of athletic faci ...
. He then went on to
North Carolina State University where he played for
Everett Case
Everett Norris Case (June 21, 1900 – April 30, 1966), nicknamed the "Old Gray Fox", was a basketball coach most notable for his tenure at North Carolina State University, from 1946 to 1964.
Early life and career
Born in Anderson, Indiana, Case ...
. Bubas was an All-
Southern Conference
The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I. Southern Conference football teams compete in the Football Championship Subdivision (formerly k ...
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 by
Duke University in 1959.
At Duke University
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.
Recruiting
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. As
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
legendary coach
Dean Smith
Dean Edwards Smith (February 28, 1931 – February 7, 2015) was an American men's college basketball head coach. Called a "coaching legend" by the Basketball Hall of Fame, he coached for 36 years at the University of North Carolina at Chapel H ...
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 Year
Art Heyman
Arthur Bruce Heyman (June 24, 1941 – August 27, 2012) was an American professional basketball player. Playing for Duke University in college, in 1963 he was USBWA Player of the Year, AP Player of the Year, UPI Player of the Year, ''Sporting ...
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 getting
Lexington, Kentucky native and eventual two-time All-American
Jeff Mullins from the
University of Kentucky
The University of Kentucky (UK, UKY, or U of K) is a public land-grant research university in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 1865 by John Bryan Bowman as the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Kentucky, the university is one of the state ...
and legendary
Adolph Rupp
Adolph Frederick Rupp (September 2, 1901 – December 10, 1977) was an American college basketball coach. He is ranked seventh in total victories by a men's NCAA Division I college coach, winning 876 games in 41 years of coaching at the Univ ...
. 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.
Performance
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-ranked
Wake 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 the
NCAA
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) is a nonprofit organization that regulates student athletics among about 1,100 schools in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico. It also organizes the athletic programs of colleges an ...
Final 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.
Retirement and death
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 the
Sun Belt Conference, a position he held for fourteen years until his retirement. The Sun Belt's all-sports championship trophy, the
Vic Bubas Cup, is named after him.
In 2007 Bubas was inducted into the
National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame
The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame, located in Kansas City, Missouri, is a hall of fame and museum dedicated to men's college basketball. The museum is an integral portion of the College Basketball Experience created by the National ...
.
Vic Bubas
. College Basketball Experience.
Bubas died on the morning of April 16, 2018 at age 91.[''The Chronicle'', Duke University, ''Vic Bubas, head coach for Duke men's basketball's first Final Fours, dies at age 91'', Chronicle Staff, April 16, 2018](_blank)
Retrieved Apr. 18, 2018.
Head coaching record
See also
* List of NCAA Division I Men's Final Four appearances by coach
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bubas, Vic
1927 births
2018 deaths
Basketball coaches from Indiana
Basketball players from Gary, Indiana
Duke Blue Devils men's basketball coaches
Illinois Fighting Illini men's basketball players
National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
NC State Wolfpack men's basketball coaches
NC State Wolfpack men's basketball players
Sportspeople from Gary, Indiana
Sun Belt Conference commissioners
American men's basketball players
Guards (basketball)