ARIZONA STATE BASKETBALL

New ASU coach Hurley changing style more than culture

Oct 8, 2015, 10:39 AM

New Arizona State men's basketball head coach Bobby Hurley waves to the crowd as he attends the fir...

New Arizona State men's basketball head coach Bobby Hurley waves to the crowd as he attends the first half of an NBA basketball game between the Phoenix Suns and the Los Angeles Clippers Tuesday, April 14, 2015, in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

(AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)

LISTEN: Bobby Hurley, ASU basketball coach

Bobby Hurley may be taking over a basketball program that made the NCAA Tournament just once in the last six seasons, but that does not mean he feels like the Arizona State Sun Devils need a drastic makeover.

“I think it’s more changing the style than necessarily the culture,” the first-year ASU coach told Doug and Wolf on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM Thursday morning. “I think that there’s a way that each coach thinks and how they do things and how they run a program.

“I can tell you that I’ve been impressed by the returning players and the quality of kids that Coach Sendek recruited to the program, they’ve made my transition a lot easier. They’ve been very good to work with, very hardworking kids, good attitude.”

What Hurley said will change, along with the style — which will include a faster pace — is the talent level, which he said needs to be upgraded. That will take time, of course, and this season Hurley and his staff will be working with a roster that includes seven holdovers from last season. Those players, along with the newcomers, will spend the next month until the Nov. 13 opener against Sacramento State learning a new system.

“We’re in the trenches right now, just had a real training camp mentality to our first weekend,” Hurley said of where his team is right now. “I think we got a lot done. We obviously challenged the guys physically, and just putting in our system and it’s a lot different than our preseason mode where we’re working on skill development.

“Now we’re doing more team-oriented drills and putting in the foundation of our defense and how hard we need to play at that end and things that are important to being successful at that end of the court. And then just a lot of memorization on offense now so the guys are getting a good feel for how we’re going to play on offense.”

Hurley, who compiled a 42-20 record over two years at Buffalo before landing the ASU job, said it’s a work in progress, but added he feels like the Devils are about where they should be at this point in the year.

And when the dust settles, the former Duke star said the team will have a different look than previous versions.

“I think that our possessions on offense should be quicker, or they were the last two years that I’ve coached, and that’s primarily because I think the influence of the NBA in my experiences in terms of my offense, and especially now with the shot clock going down to 30 seconds it even puts more of an emphasis to get into what you’re running on offense quicker,” he said. “It’s our philosophy that if we can generate more possessions on offense than our opponent, then we’ll have a chance to at the end outscore them.

“And at the same time, we put a lot of time in on defense to obviously get the stops we need so that we can play faster. We keep talking to the guys, if you’re taking the ball out of the net chances are we’re not going to be able to get up and down the court the way we want to.”

To that end, Hurley said he’s really fond of the mobility his front court brings to the table, singling out forwards Eric Jacobsen, Savon Goodman, Willie Atwood and Obinna Oleka.

“All four of those guys are very athletic and very mobile, so they fit to how we want to play.”

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