Victor Albert Bubas (January 28, 1927 – April 16, 2018) was an American college basketball coach for Duke University and the first commissioner of the Sun Belt Conference. 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. 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, 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