FAYETTEVILLE — Former Arkansas coach Eddie Sutton will not be elected to this year's Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame class, his family was told Tuesday.
Sutton, who is 83 and in declining health, was a finalist for the Hall of Fame for the sixth time. Naismith finalists must receive 75 percent of the vote from the Hall's 24 voters for admission.
“Once again the phone rings and what should be a joyful moment for the Sutton family becomes instead a downpour of sadness,” the Sutton family wrote in a statement that was distributed through the Twitter account for an upcoming documentary film about him.