System Mechanic - Clean, repair, protect, and speed up your PC!Ed Jucker
d. 2002
CINCINNATI - Ed Jucker, who coached Cincinnati to NCAA championships in 1961-62 and had the best winning percentage in NCAA tournament history, is dead at 85.
Jucker died at his home in Callawassie Island, S.C., on Saturday, the university said.
"This is a great loss for UC and college basketball," Bearcats coach Bob Huggins said. "Coach Jucker set the standard for coaching excellence at the University of Cincinnati."
Jucker led the team to its first national title in his first year coaching his alma mater, beating Ohio State 70-65 in overtime. The Bearcats also beat Ohio State the following year, 71-59. Jucker also coached Cincinnati to the national championship game in 1963, but the Bearcats lost 60-58 to Loyola of Chicago in overtime.
"If we had won one more championship, we could have been, perhaps, the UCLA of our time," he said later.
UCLA won 10 NCAA titles in 12 years, ending in 1975.
Jucker finished 11-1 in NCAA play, a winning percentage of .917. His .801 winning percentage (113-28) at Cincinnati is the school record.
Jucker also coached baseball at Cincinnati for seven years, and recruited Hall of Fame pitcher Sandy Koufax on a basketball scholarship. Koufax, who also played baseball at Cincinnati, signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1954.
In Jucker's first season, the Bearcats started 5-3 as he abandoned Cincinnati's fast-break offense for a more deliberate style of play. But the team then won 22 consecutive games, including the upset of Ohio State for the national title.
Jucker resigned after the 1964-65 season, when the Bearcats went 14-12. He cited the increasing pressures of the job and its effect on his health and family.
"I hardly know my family," he said. "I have four children growing up who hardly know me. They have got to come first."
He later coached the NBA's Cincinnati Royals for two seasons and at Rollins College in Deland, Fla., where he had a record of 82-42 with two NCAA Division II tournament appearances. He spent seven years as athletic director at Rollins before retiring in 1983.
Jucker is survived by his wife, Joanne, four children, a sister and five grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held in Cincinnati at a date to be determined.
