FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) – Jim Killingsworth, who took over a struggling TCU basketball team in the 1980s and coached the Horned Frogs to the NCAA tournament, has died. He was 83.
Killingsworth died Sunday of complications from a stroke last month at his home in Owasso, Okla., the university said.
When he arrived in 1979, TCU had won just three of its previous 48 Southwest Conference games. His teams steadily improved and in 1986 qualified for the NIT, where the Horned Frogs fell in the second round to Florida. In 1987, Killingsworth’s winningest team made it to the second round of the NCAA tournament but lost to Notre Dame.
Killingsworth retired after that season, with a 130-106 record in eight seasons.
TCU teams under Killingsworth became known as the “Killer Frogs,” a nickname given to them by local newspapers during the 1981 SWC tournament.
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