Temper, temper! Are Hurley’s outbursts hurting Sun Devils?
President confident in ASU’s direction
Over the past three seasons, Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley has gained national attention for his interaction with officials. Put simply, he is relentless. School president Michael Crow has noticed, but he’s not too concerned. He expects his men’s basketball coach to grow out of it. “Bobby hasn’t been a coach for a long period of time, so he’s got to learn how to manage his volcanic emotions,” Crow recently told azcentral sports during a wide-ranging interview in his office. “And what I mean by that, those emotions are what make him, him. But they are wasted on officials. I’m a big believer that you don’t win or lose games based on officials.” Hurley’s temper has been a story line throughout this season. On Jan. 5, the Pac-12 reprimanded him for publicly criticizing the officiating following an overtime loss at Colorado. Last week, the conference reprimanded him again, this time fining him $10,000 for confronting an official after a loss at Oregon State.
In Saturday’s home loss to Stanford, Hurley received a technical foul – only his second of the season – that proved costly. With 15 minutes left, officials waved off a Remy Martin 3-pointer because of a foul whistled before the shot. Hurley reacted and drew the technical foul. Stanford’s Dorian Pickens hit two free throws.
ASU lost by 1.
To his credit, when asked about ASU's missed free throws in the final seconds, Hurley first brought up his technical foul. With the loss, the Sun Devils dropped to 20-10 and 8-10 in the Pac-12. They open the Pac-12 Tournament on Wednesday against Colorado. A win likely would lock up the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid since 2014.
“He’s a man of passion,” Crow said of Hurley. “I worry mostly that he seems to lose, like, 10 pounds during the game, just sweating it off. We really worry – can he even not kill himself while he’s out there just from overwhelming his body with so much energy that he’s spending? He’ll learn as he matures as a coach how to manage that energy, how to focus that energy on the most important thing, which is guiding the team during the game.”
Overall, Crow is incredibly pleased with Hurley, a reason the university recently gave the coach a hefty raise, making Hurley one of the Pac-12’s betterpaid coaches with a base salary of $2.1 million.
Crow likes the program’s direction
After two losing seasons, Hurley this season elevated ASU basketball to a level seldom seen. After non-conference wins over Xavier and Kansas, ASU climbed into the Top 5 of the national polls, its highest ranking since the early 1980s.
Even with the program's Pac-12 struggles, Crow likes the program’s direction. Hurley’s 2018 recruiting class is widely considered one of the nation’s 25 best. Perhaps just as important, more people are attending ASU games than ever before, which has always been the program’s biggest hurdle. In January, ASU removed a wall that blocked off the upper rows of Wells Fargo Arena, increasing its seating capacity.
ASU this season averaged 10,603 fans for home games, the best mark in program history.
“Am I surprised in the third year that we’ve got 11, 12, 13,000 people coming to all of our games? A little bit, but we expected it by the fourth year.” Crow said. “Our goal was sort of a four-year transition into a fantastic team structure. We had a great pre-conference season, tremendous road wins against tremendous teams, two of which (Xavier and Kansas) might be seeded first in the (NCAA) tournament coming up.”
Crow credited Vice President of Athletics Ray Anderson for hiring Hurley. At the time, Hurley had only two years of head-coaching experience, taking Buffalo to its first NCAA Tournament in 2015.
But what he lacked in experience, Hurley made up with fire.
“Coach Hurley had a fantastic basketball career; he had not had a fantastic coaching career,” Crow said. “But Ray and his advisers could see in Bobby the skill set we were looking for – this complete and total dedication to the success of our players. Not just the success of our team, the success of our players.
“And you can see that in the way that these athletes have changed. Look back at (senior guard Tra) Holder over the last three years and look at some of his changes. There are other players that he’s nurtured and cultivated. Look at their scale of improvement. That’s the coach, and they’re all succeeding as students (as well.)”