Billy Tubbs, the colorful coach who brought Oklahoma basketball to prominence in the 1980s with a high-octane system known as Billy Ball, died on Sunday in Norman, Okla., the home of the university’s main campus. He was 85.
He had been treated for leukemia since 2015, his family said in a statement announcing his death.
Tubbs took over a struggling Oklahoma program in 1980. Before he arrived, the Sooners had reached the N.C.A.A. tournament just once over 32 seasons as a member of the now-dissolved Big Eight conference and held a combined winning percentage of .471 from 1950 to 1980. (For most of those years, only the Big Eight champion went to the tournament.)
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