Some of the best stories in Mizzou basketball history centered around Norm Stewart’s annual clashes with the other colorful coaching legends around the Big Eight. Roy Williams, Billy Tubbs, Danny Nee, Johnny Orr.
Norm’s 1990s showdowns against Eddie Sutton and his Oklahoma State Cowboys were usually a physical grind from tip-off to final buzzer. These were two hard-scrabble old school souls, two men born during the Great Depression who became the winningest coaches in the modern history of their respective alma maters.
Sutton, just a month after his election to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame, died Saturday at his home in North Tulsa, Okla.