LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Delvy Lewis, the starting guard for the Kansas team that lost to Texas Western in the 1966 NCAA tournament, has died after a nine-year fight with cancer. He was 68.
Lewis’s family informed the school that he died Monday afternoon.
Lewis started for three years under coach Ted Owens at Kansas, helping the Jayhawks to a Big Eight championship as a senior. But the year ended in disappointed when Kansas lost to eventual champion Texas Western, the team depicted in the Disney film “Glory Road.”
Owens says Lewis was “a great leader and a great competitor,” and in good spirits in December during a reunion of the Jayhawks’ 1965-66 team at Allen Fieldhouse.
Max Falkenstien, the longtime radio voice of Kansas, called Lewis “one of the real class guys in the history of KU basketball.”
