Vic Bubas
 |
| Biographical details | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 28, 1927 Gary, Indiana |
| Playing career | |
| 1944–1945 | Illinois |
| 1947–1951 | NC State |
| Position(s) | Guard |
| Coaching career (HC unless noted) | |
| 1951–1959 | NC State (asst.) |
| 1959–1969 | Duke |
| Head coaching record | |
| Overall | 213-67 (.761) |
| Tournaments | 11-4 (.733) |
| Accomplishments and honors | |
| Championships | |
| 3× Regional Championships - Final Four (1963, 1964, 1966) 4× ACC regular season championship (1963–1966) 4× ACC Tournament championship (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 | |
Vic Bubas (born January 28, 1927) is a former basketball coach of Duke University.
Early life
Bubas graduated from Gary Lew Wallace High School in 1944. After finishing high school he enrolled at the University of Illinois, playing the 1944-45 season for the Fighting Illini.[1] He then went on to North Carolina State University where he played for Everett 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 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 legendary coach Dean 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 Year Art 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 getting Lexington, Kentucky native and eventual two-time All-American Jeff Mullins from the University of Kentucky and legendary Adolph Rupp. Paired together, Heyman and Mullins formed a devastating duo.
Performance
Times were different. 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 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
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.
In 2007 Bubas was inducted into the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame.[2]
Head coaching record
| Season | Team | Overall | Conference | Standing | Postseason | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duke Blue Devils (ACC) (1959–1970) | |||||||||
| 1959–60 | Duke | 17-11 | 7-7 | 4th | NCAA Elite 8 | ||||
| 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 Final 4 | ||||
| 1963–64 | Duke | 26-5 | 13-1 | 1st | NCAA Runner-Up | ||||
| 1964–65 | Duke | 20-5 | 11-3 | 1st | |||||
| 1965–66 | Duke | 26-4 | 12-2 | 1st | NCAA Final 4 | ||||
| 1966–67 | Duke | 18-9 | 9-3 | 2nd | |||||
| 1967–68 | Duke | 22-6 | 11-3 | 2nd | NIT 2nd Round | ||||
| 1968–69 | Duke | 15-13 | 8-6 | T-3rd | |||||
| Duke: | 213-67 | 106-32 | |||||||
| Total: | 213-67 | ||||||||
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National champion
Postseason invitational champion
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References
- ^ All-Time Illini Rosters Archived June 25, 2013, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Vic Bubas Archived July 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine. College Basketball Experience.
See also
- 1927 births
- Living people
- American basketball coaches
- American people of Croatian descent
- Basketball players at the 1950 NCAA Men's Division I Final Four
- Basketball players from 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