Bobby Hurley rips ASU’s performance after loss to Purdue

NEW YORK (AP) — Isaac Haas and Vincent Edwards were both 6 of 9 from the field and had 16 points on Tuesday night as No. 18 Purdue dominated Arizona State in every phase of the game for a 97-64 victory in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden.

ASU head coach Bobby Hurley didn’t hold back criticizing his team’s effort following the game.

“We identify ourselves with making jump shots,” Hurley said. “Right now we’re a soft team and we don’t have any backbone. When we didn’t make our shots, we folded, we gave in. It was sad to see.

“It’s unfortunate that our team didn’t even come close to the energy that Jimmy (Valvano) had in his life and his passion. We had no passion for playing. We did a disservice to this game and this event and what he represented.”

Purdue, which has won six of seven, took command with a 26-2 run that gave the Boilermakers a 35-12 lead. During the spurt, Purdue scored both inside and out while the Sun Devils (5-4) missed 12 of 13 shots and the Boilermakers (7-2) outrebounded Arizona State 16-5.

Arizona State finished the first half 1 of 11 from 3-point range, one game after matching the school record with 18 3s against UNLV. The Sun Devils were 4 for 26 for the game on 3s and 24 of 67 overall (24 of 67).

“That was really disturbing — how we competed,” Hurley said, according to a transcription provided by ZagsBlog.com’s Adam Zagoria. “It’s not a reflection of my personality or the team’s I’ve coached, so we have to make some changes. We had a nice win against UNLV and defended and played pretty hard, but tonight, we just didn’t do that.

“For a city that’s a blue-collar city and an arena that has so much tradition and so many good players that have played on this court — to look like that it was embarrassing,” Hurley added.

Ryan Cline had 15 points for Purdue, and Basil Smotherman had 13. Carsen Edwards and Dakota Mathias scored 12 each.

Cline was 5 for 7 and Vincent Edwards went 4 for 5 from 3-point range as Purdue finished 15 of 27 from long range. The Boilermakers shot 59.4 percent overall (38 of 64).

Shannon Evans II led the Sun Devils with 16 points, and Torian Graham added 14.

Caleb Swanigan had 10 rebounds to lead the Boilermakers, who finished with a 44-28 advantage on the glass. The 7-foot-2 Haas had seven rebounds.

The win ended a three-game losing streak at Madison Square Garden for the Boilermakers, who are 13-9 in the building all-time.

“I thought we competed for about 8 minutes out of 40,” Hurley said of Purdue. “That’s not good enough at this level.”

BIG PICTURE

Arizona State: The Sun Devils are one of the most mobile college basketball teams. From Nov. 16 through Dec. 10, they will travel 12,900 miles and spend 11 of 25 nights in hotels. The trips included one to the Bahamas to face then-No. 1 Kentucky. … In their current six-game stretch, the Sun Devils will have faced ranked teams Kentucky, Purdue and Creighton. … Arizona State is 1-4 at Madison Square Garden.

UP NEXT

Arizona State is at San Diego State on Saturday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report