Bobby Hurley brings ‘blue-collar mentality’ to Arizona State Sun Devil basketball

TEMPE, Ariz. — On the court, Bobby Hurley was known as a take-charge, hard-working, no-nonsense player who never backed down from a challenge. In fact, he embraced the underdog role and more times than not excelled where others believed he would fail.

That proverbial chip on his shoulder remained when Hurley entered the coaching ranks and has now accompanied him to Arizona State, where was formally introduced as the 14th head men’s basketball coach in Sun Devil history on Friday.

“It’s a blue-collar mentality,” he said. “I have a blue-collar background with my upbringing. Nothing has really ever come easy to me. People have really always doubted my career. As a player, they never expected I’d take it as far as I took it. There were questions about my experience coming into Buffalo and in two years we won a conference title for the first time in school history — that’s with a team that was projected to finish fourth in its division last year.”

The challenge facing Hurley at ASU is no simple task, and that’s to lift a program that has advanced to the NCAA Tournament just five times in the past 33 years — or one more trip than what Hurley made during his four-year All-American run at Duke.

“My expectations and what other people’s expectations are a little different and hopefully we’ll get on the same page with the guys and get that done,” he said with ASU President Dr. Michael Crow seated to his right and vice president for university athletics Ray Anderson to his left.

Hurley briefly met with his new team a few hours before his press conference and said he plans to meet with each player individually very soon.

What can they and the fans expect once the Sun Devils hit the court? A style, according to Hurley, that he has drawn from his experience as a player at Duke and the influence of his brother, Dan, whom he served under as the associate head coach at Rhode Island.

“It’s a very aggressive style of man defense,” he said. “I want to put pressure on our opponent, but do it in a disciplined way. I’m not the type of coach that typically runs around and traps and then gives up easy baskets. I want defensively our guys to lock down, to force difficult shots, to create some turnovers because teams are just tired of dealing with us at that end of the floor.

“On the flip side, I give my players freedom. We spend a ton of time on skill-development and developing guys’ games. I want to put guys in great positions to make plays. We’re going to play fast, and I think that style fits in very well in this league.”

Hurley pointed out his Buffalo Bulls led the Mid-American Conference in scoring (74.6 points per game) and ranked in the top 25 in the country in pace of play.

“I don’t know if we got a shot clock violation last year,” he said of a team that matched a school-record with 23 wins and made its first-ever appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

That, Hurley added, could only have been done — and can be done at ASU — by playing together as a team.

“I am the all-time assists leader, so everyone has to play unselfishly on offense. It’s one of the things we preach and talk about,” he said.

To help with the transition, Hurley announced he’s retaining assistant Stan Johnson and bringing along Levi Watkins, who had been with him for two seasons at Buffalo.

Other staff hires are expected shortly.

“I think it’s a fun style to watch, what people enjoy watching,” Hurley said. “I think our fans in Buffalo enjoyed how we played and a lot of that had to do with the players who we brought in the program. Those guys were really good, and we’ll work with the guys here to play in a similar way.”

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