BATON ROUGE - Willie Sims, a member of LSU's 1981 NCAA Final Four team affectionately known as "Super Sub," has died. He was 64.

Saturday, LSU officials announced that Sims passed away Friday following complications from a heart attack earlier this year. He had been hospitalized in Israel since August.

Read the university's full statement here:

Willie Sims, a member of LSU’s 1981 NCAA Final Four team who became affectionally know by LSU fans as “Super Sub”, passed away on Dec. 23 at the age of 64.

Sims had been hospitalized in Israel, where he has lived for years, since a heart attack in August.

Sims was part of a very successful run of LSU teams that won regular season conference championships in 1979 and 1981, the SEC Tournament championship in 1980 and the NCAA Final Four run in 1981.

Sims came off the bench during most of his career, bringing energy and spirit in the contest. During the 1981 season, he was introduced along with the starting lineup by then PA announcer Sid Crocker as the “best sixth man in college basketball.”

Sims was born in Lanett, Alabama and grew up in New York City. He was Jewish and predominantly raised by his grandmother, who converted to Judaism following her marriage to Sims' grandfather.

He played high school basketball at Long Island City High School and college basketball at LSU from 1977 until 1981.

Over four years, Sims played in 120 games with a career scoring average of 7.6 points per game. He averaged 9.2 points in 1980 and 8.5 points in the 1981 NCAA Final Four season. Sims shot over 50 percent from the field in both the 1980 and 1981 seasons.

Sims took part in the 10th 1977 Maccabiah Games as part of the United States national basketball team. He scored the winning shot against Israel in the finals and helped the United States to the title. He also played in the 11th Maccabiah Games, again representing the United States.

Sims was drafted in 1981 by the NBA's Denver Nuggets in the fifth round of that year's NBA draft, but he elected to play professionally in Israel where he became a beloved figure in the game of basketball in the country.

Sims played in Israel for Maccabi Haifa B.C. from 1981 to 1983. From 1983 to 1985 he played for Hapoel Tel Aviv B.C., where he won the Israeli Basketball State Cup. From 1985 until 1987 he played for Elitzur Netanya and from 1987 to 1992 he played for Maccabi Tel Aviv B.C., where he won the Israeli Basketball Super League five times and won three Israeli State Cups. He then played for the Hapoel Eilat basketball club from 1992-to-1996.

Over the course of 15 seasons, he played 309 league games in Israel and scored 3,761 points. He is ranked in the top 50 of the greatest players of all time in the country. He also appeared in 76 playoff games in Israel, in which he scored 842 points, ranking 14th on the list of all-time best players in the playoffs in Israel.

He is survived by his wife, Ariella, and three children. His daughter, Danyelle, is married to former Israeli basketball player Gal Mekel, who played in the NBA for the Dallas Mavericks and the New Orleans Pelicans.