University of South Florida men’s basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim, a rising star in the collegiate coaching ranks, died Thursday after a battle with an aggressive illness, according to the Tampa Bay Times. He was 43 years old.

USF later confirmed the news, revealing that Abdur-Rahim died due to complications from a medical procedure. Abdur-Rahim is survived by his wife and their three children.

Abdur-Rahim, the younger brother of NBA veteran Shareef Abdur-Rahim and a former all-conference player at Southeastern Louisiana, spent more than a decade as an assistant coach at Murray State, College of Charleston, Texas A&M and Georgia before joining got his first performance. as head coach at Kennesaw State in 2019.

He took over a moribund program that had not made the NCAA Tournament in its history since jumping to Division I in 2005. The team posted a 1-28 record in his first season, but it improved every season with him on the rudder. .

The Owls improved to 5-19, then 13-18 and finally 26-9 in 2022-23, with Atlantic Sun regular-season and conference tournament titles. They also shocked No. 3 seed Xavier in the first round of their first NCAA tournament berth, taking a 13-point lead in the second half before a cold streak on offense allowed the Musketeers to come back and avoid an upset.

It was one of the top coaching performances in the country and earned Abdur-Rahim the Hugh Durham Award as the best coach of a mid-major program and a new job with a larger program at USF.

Success came even faster for Abdur-Rahim in Tampa. The Bulls went from 14-18 in 2022-23 to 25-8 last season, won the program’s first regular-season title and just missed an NCAA tournament bid after an embarrassing loss in the conference tournament.

From USF:

With such a track record, Abdur-Rahim was a name to watch for even bigger programs in the future. Instead, his story ended in tragedy weeks before his sophomore season at USF was set to begin.