Tim Grgurich

Who is Tim Grgurich?

Tim Grgurich is an American basketball coach and native of the Lawrenceville neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania having attended Central Catholic High School in the city. Grgurich served as the Head Coach at his alma mater, the University of Pittsburgh, for 5 seasons in the mid to late 1970's. He also served as the head basketball coach at UNLV for the first seven games of the 1994–95 season before abruptly resigning. He arrived at UNLV in the mid–1980s and imported the amoeba defense developed when he was a Pitt assistant under Bob Timmons and Charles 'Buzz' Ridl to Jerry Tarkanian's teams.

As a player at Pitt he led the team to two consecutive post season tournaments in 1963 and 1964. He then served 12 years as an assistant coach and head of recruiting under Timmons and Ridl. He helped to develop Pitt's famous amoeba defense that along with the superlative play of All-American forward Billy Knight launched a 22 game win streak for Pitt in the 1973-1974 season under Head Coach 'Buzz' Ridl. That carried Pitt to the Elite 8 that year, it's furthest advance in the NCAA tournament since making the Final Four in 1941. The '74 season ended in losing to eventual NCAA Champion, North Carolina State with David Thompson and Tom Burleson in a game played on NC State's home court in Raleigh.