Hurley family shares in the joy of dancing
The moment Dan Hurley waited for all season had taken a dark turn. The Rhode Island coach couldn’t enjoy his NCAA Tournament watch party until he learned whether his older brother, Bobby, and Arizona State, would also be in the field.
And because the top-seeded Rams were upset by Davidson in the Atlantic 10 title game hours earlier, one less bubble team would be going to the Dance.
“Going into the game today, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking about the ramifications if we lost,” Dan told The Post, “and the tenuous position they would’ve been in.”
Arizona State’s future was going to be determined at the start of the at-large reveal, given the new format of announcing by alphabetical order.
Dan stood with his hand over his mouth, surrounded by his players, who turned to see an unusually nervous coach.
After learning that his older brother would also be invited, Dan unleashed a series of violent fist pumps, before covering his face, and crying, as his players patted him on the back.
“To see that was amazing initially, and then just relief and tons of emotion,” Dan said. “To be in this tournament together is just awesome.”
Across the country, Bobby leapt from a chair, and started jumping around, before hugging his players.
“He’s such a good brother and we have such a strong relationship,” Bobby said to reporters in Arizona. “You have no idea how much extra pressure he put on himself this morning. I felt terrible that he was thinking about that.”
The brothers began their collegiate coaching career together, with Bobby, 46, assisting Dan, 45, at Wagner for two seasons — they orchestrated the biggest turnaround in the nation, and then set a school-record for wins in Year 2 — and spent one year together at Rhode Island, before Bobby got his first head coaching gig at Buffalo.
Bobby reached the NCAA Tournament first, taking the Bulls in 2015, while Dan nearly led Rhode Island to the Sweet 16 last season. The New Jersey natives haven’t been in the event together since 1993, when Bobby played at Duke, and Dan was at Seton Hall.
Hall of Fame St. Anthony’s coach Bob Hurley learned both his sons made the tournament while driving home from the Rams’ championship game loss in Washington, D.C., and the patriarch of one of basketball’s most famous families was thrilled he’d be able to see each of their opening games.
Eleventh-seeded Arizona State plays 11th-seeded Syracuse on Wednesday night in Dayton, Ohio, and seventh-seeded Rhode Island will be a four-hour drive away, facing 10th-seeded Oklahoma on Thursday afternoon in Pittsburgh. Should the Sun Devils win, they would play Friday night in Detroit against sixth-seeded TCU.
The brothers could collide in the Sweet 16, but if both teams advance to the second round, it would likely require Arizona State upsetting third-seeded Michigan State, and Rhode Island taking down second-seeded Duke.
“We’re sitting here trying to figure out how do we do it … but fortunately, geographically, it’s doable,” Bob said. “It’s extraordinary. It was emotion-filled, and now very gratifying that it turned out the way it did.”
Bob recalled how much fun it was in the beginning of the decade, when he, and his wife, Christine, would drive over from Jersey City to Staten Island to watch their boys coaching on the same sideline.
But that’s almost “a blur” now. So much has changed.
Bobby has taken two different schools to the NCAA Tournament, and Dan has gone in consecutive years, with a team that previously hadn’t been there since 1999.
“It takes you back to the conversations we had before I took the Wagner job, and began this coaching journey together,” Dan said. “To be places that [weren’t established] before we got there makes it even more special.”