The Big Blue Nation and the rest of the basketball community received some sobering news on Saturday night: Hall of Fame coach Eddie Sutton passed away. The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette broke the news late last night.
Sutton was 84 at the time of his death and will forever be regarded as one of the all-time greatest coaches in college basketball history. He spent four seasons at the helm for the Wildcats from 1985-1989, posting a 90-40 overall record that included a trip to the Elite Eight in his first year as UK’s coach. Sutton is more commonly remembered for his lengthy stints as the head coach at Arkansas (1974-85) and Oklahoma State (1990-2006) before he was inducted into the 2020 Naismith Hall of Fame class alongside basketball icons such as Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Tamika Catchings, Patrick Baumann, Kim Mulkey, Barbara Stevens, and Rudy Tomjanovich.