Mike Blake/Reuters
Lute Olson, a Basketball Hall of Fame coach who took the University of Arizona to the 1997 N.C.A.A. championship and 23 consecutive appearances in the postseason tournament, died on Thursday in Tucson, Ariz. He was 85.
His death was announced by the university. He was hospitalized in February 2019 after he had a stroke and had been in hospice care.
When Olson was named Arizona’s coach for the 1983-84 season, the Wildcats had been in only three N.C.A.A. championship tournaments and had gone 4-24 the previous season. The state of Arizona was hardly an outpost for collegiate basketball.