Jersey City native Bobby Hurley — coach at Arizona State, brother of UConn coach Dan Hurley and two-time NCAA champion as a player at Duke — takes a timeout for some Final Four Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.
Q: How does this UConn team compare to last year’s team?
A: I think that there’s more confidence, more belief that they’ve done it already, and there’s some key players that already know what it takes to win it. The first time through, no matter how much success you have, in the back of your mind, there’s always that “Can we do it? Can we win this?” So I think that’s been taken out of the equation, so I think this team, with [Donovan] Clingan making the jump that he’s made and [Tristen] Newton’s having an All-American season, and my brother I think did a masterful job of just replacing the key players that he lost, so it’s really splitting hairs for me. I loved last year’s team just because guys like Andre Jackson and I liked [Jordan] Hawkins a lot. I was watching it firsthand quite a bit in the NCAA Tournament.
Q: How would this UConn team do versus your early 1990s Duke teams?
A: I think that there would be pluses and minuses with both teams, and it’s really hard to compare teams from different eras, and college basketball’s different today than it was when I played. You had players staying in college a lot more then. Our team stayed together for a number of years, the core of our team, so that certainly would be an edge. Grant Hill would be a handful (chuckle). Clingan I think would do really well against us scoring with his size. [Christian] Laettner was so good at just moving all around the floor and taking advantage of matchups.
Q: What was it like for you last year watching Dan win it last year?
A: It was awesome because we grew up together, we’re so close. We started in the profession together, and I had the privilege of working for him for three years, and just to see what he’s been able to do is special as a brother, someone that wants nothing but the best for him. To see him do it at this level, and now that we both captured national championships, it’s been awesome, it’s kind of down full circle that we both now could share something that we know is really special.
Q: Describe Alabama coach Nate Oats.
A: I think Nate’s story is fantastic. He built a really good program in Detroit called Romulus High School, and I was able to recruit one of his players along with our other assistants — E.C. Matthews, he ended up going to play for my brother at Rhode Island, and was a very good player for my brother. In that process, I watched Nate Oats conduct practices, I had time to talk with him about the game. He had a real knowledge to the game, passion for it, and when I got the Buffalo job and kind of needed an assistant in the Midwest that not only could coach but could recruit that area, he became an obvious choice based on the time that I spent with him.
Q: What has enabled him to take advantage of it?
A: There are certain people that just are basketball junkies, and that’s how I would define him first. We literally sat in his gym and talked about basketball over and over again, you could just see how excited he is about the game. He always had really good ideas, he would have great suggestions. I didn’t use all of them, or chose to use some and not others, but he was always trying to be innovative and find new things to bring to the table to help our team be successful. When I watched him conduct practices, that’s where the magic really happens. He was able to really take command of his practices, there was structure, there was disciple to how he coached.
Q: On the Final Four rosters, which players do you project to have NBA careers?
A: I would say Clingan for sure. He protects the basket, he could score, he’s got post moves, he plays hard, he’s 7-3. NBA player for sure. I think [UConn guard Stephon] Castle looks like an NBA player. I think [Cam] Spencer could play in the NBA. I think Newton has a chance. Purdue big man Zach] Edey for sure. Alabama, the 4-man [Grant Nelson], I think he’s got a shot.
Q: What about N.C. State’s big man DJ Burns Jr.?
A: He’s interesting. He’s s little but undersized [6-foot-9] for that position at the NBA level, but he’s been very productive so I wouldn’t count him out, that’s for sure.
Q: NFL teams seem to have an interest.
A: Left tackle? Right tackle? He’s got s really great base, he’s physical, he’s got a good wingspan.
Q: What was it like growing up with Dan?
A: We were just typical brothers. Early in life we played a lot of sports, I was 18 months older than him. We were competitive, we would play one-on-one, do all those things. But once you got through all the rivalry brother stuff early in life, we transitioned into like a friendship late in our teens and into our 20s. We’re just really great support system now for both of us. We’re both sounding boards for each other when we’re in our weak moments leading into these games. He’s someone that I got tremendous amount of trust and just friendship.
staffs at Wagner and Rhode Island. AP
Q: How would he handle losing now?
A: He’s going to go all-in for his players and he’s going to have them prepared and then let the chips fall where they may. … If it doesn’t go his way, he’s going to know that he gave everything had for it.
Q: How would you compare your coaching style and his coaching style?
A: I think we’re similar in some ways just based on the natural reasons, having grown up in the Hurley household and being exposed to the basketball the way we were our whole lives. I think both of coach with a lot of passion, with a lot of fire. There’s going to be differences in how we coach. I learned so much from him, I still use a number of drills that Dan did at Wagner and Rhode Island the years I was with him as an assistant. So there’ll be similarities, but based on the composition of the team and the players that we have and the ways that we have to play to get the most out of our players, there’ll be some differences in terms of style.
Q: Is he as good a coach as there is in college basketball?
A: I think what he’s done, it speaks for itself. I thought he was one of the best coaches in college basketball before he won big like he did last year.
Q: What is the essence of his greatness?
A: I think it’s how much he cares, the relationships he builds with his players, his knowledge of the game, his ability to identify talent and put it all together, his roster composition. … He doesn’t really have an obvious weakness so he’s kind of done a masterful job of just putting together a really good team that has a lot of great parts to it. He’s got a style that works, his teams are well-conditioned, they play the right way. So he checks just about all the boxes you could look for.
Q: What do you recall when they played “One Shining Moment” last year?
A: It was surreal. It’s like, wow! Like all the work that we both put in together our whole lives and what basketball’s meant to us our whole lives, and I know how hard Dan has worked since he stopped playing in the coaching profession, and to see him climb to the top of the mountain it was just like surreal … just such an amazing feeling.
Q: What do you remember about your first “One Shining Moment” at Duke in 1991?
A: I couldn’t believe that I was standing on the stage and I was there, and because of the circumstances going into that Final Four, how dominant [undefeated] UNLV had been, and what an underdog we were in that Final Four. You go in there all-in, I was ready to attack that Final Four differently than I was my freshman year, but it’s hard to imagine that you’re standing there, and that’s how life-changing it is from when the ball goes up on Saturday to the last buzzer on Monday night. In like 48 hours, your life could change. I always dreamed of going to Final Fours when I was a kid in the ’80s watching like really great Final Fours — like [Michael] Jordan’s shot, N.C. State, Villanova beating Georgetown, Keith Smart’s shot. … All these memories I had as a young person and now all of a sudden at 19, 20 years old I’m standing there, and I’m a part of college basketball history.
Q: Was your second “One Shining Moment” the next year different for you?
A: It was very rewarding because we were the hunted, like all year. It was a different script. We were everybody’s Super Bowl every game, and it was a little bit draining. So it was almost like you take a deep breath and say, “Oof, thank God, we got this one done.” And we had to dodge a couple of bullets along the way just with the Kentucky game and Laettner’s shot. But beating the Fab Five was awesome because they were a story that year. That one felt great but for different reasons.
Q: Do you remember when coach Mike Krzyzewski nearly left?
A: It was after we lost my freshman year, it was kind of a humiliating game [against UNLV in 1990] and had to do a lot of soul-searching and saw rumors about him potentially taking an NBA job. I called him up and said, “Please don’t take it,” and he said like, “Well (laugh) what are you doing to get better and change what happened this past year?” I had to do my part too, so I got to work. But happy he stayed.
Q: What are your thoughts on his successor, Jon Scheyer?
A: I think Jon’s got great energy, I think he’s done a great job recruiting, and continuing to sell the vision and that brand of what Duke basketball could be. He’s a young coach that’s going to continue to learn and get better.
Q: Describe Coach K’s recruitment.
A: He was on his game on my visit. He knocked it out of the park. I was leaning toward the Big East going into that visit, but I saw the family environment of how the players interacted with his family at his house. Just saw like what basketball meant in that area in Tobacco Road, and Coach K flew back home with me after my visit ended, and I was exhausted from the weekend and a lot of meetings. He was still selling me about his vision for me. I committed when I got back home and talked to my parents.
Q: Were you pondering St. John’s?
A: St. John’s was in play. Seton Hall because of two of my teammates, Terry Dehere and Jerry Walker, ended up going to Seton Hall —we had talked about maybe potentially playing together in college. … Syracuse was involved, Sherman Douglas was graduating. Villanova. So I had like a majority of Big East programs and then Duke.
Q: What was Looie Carnesecca’s pitch to you?
A: He was a figure, he was a personality. I don’t think I had a bad face-to-face experience with Looie Carnesecca, he always made you feel better about yourself, and he’s always laughing and positive. But he had great teams that I watched growing up — he had Walter Berry, Chris Mullin, those teams — so I knew what he was capable of doing if he had the right players, and the Garden, when you grow up in New Jersey you say, “Wow, this would be pretty attractive.” So yeah, they were definitely a possibility for me.
Q: How many times over the years have you cringed at the term The Diarrhea Game — the championship game loss to UNLV?
A: Not as much as people would think (chuckle). It was probably more in the moment, I’m like, Coach K are you serious? You could have said something a little different. Now it’s like way in the resembles mirror, it’s so far that I can’t even see it anymore.
Q: It was embarrassing to you when he mentioned the word?
A: I just figured, “Not feeling well, had to go in and just visit with the trainer quickly,” or something, so I didn’t have to carry that burden with me.
Q: What was it like get beat by 30 in the 1990 title game by UNLV?
A: When you lay an egg the way we did in that game — and individually I played as bad a game in a big moment as you could possibly imagine — looking back on it now, I feel even worse for the seniors that were on that team that I couldn’t perform better individually to help give them more of a chance to win. And then you got to go home to a place like Jersey City that people don’t forget something like that. It tests you. Initially, I think I got punched in the mouth, that’s how I sound describe it, and it took me a couple of weeks to really get back and get back in the gym, and then I just got hungry and had a chip on my shoulder that whole year to get better. Rarely in life do you get an opportunity to make amends in a situation, and we played a near-perfect game, we were just ready for the challenge that year.
Q: What did Coach K tell you guys before the rematch in the 1991 Final Four?
A: I remember that Carolina lost to Kansas. We were such rivals as you know that Coach K’s first instincts was to come in and kind of yell at us to it’s not OK now that North Carolina lost that we could lose (laugh). It’s kind of not what I was thinking about to be honest, but he wanted to make sure that we understood that. We were locked in for that game. His motivation that week was on point — just his messaging, just talking about what he was gonna say to the media, and how invincible UNLV is — but don’t really believe any of that because we’re gonna win on Saturday night.
Q: Describe Laettner.
A: He was a killer, he was an assassin, just a guy that had tremendous confidence, self-belief. He wanted the big moment, he never shied away from that. He loved going on the road and just silencing the crowd. He didn’t mind that role of kind of being the lightning rod for all the negativity, from opponents on the floor. Probably took a little bit of pressure off me on that regard because everyone liked yelling, “Hur-ley, Hur-ley” throughout the whole game. But he’s one of the all-time great players in the history of college basketball.
Q: Grant Hill.
A: He was the best player I ever played with at any level. He was not high maintenance at all got, just a superstar-type of player.
Q: What made your father, Bob Sr., such a legendary coach at St. Anthony High?
A: He loved the game, he was always learning about the game, never stops learning. He cared about his players, trying to get those guys scholarships to college, and was always impactful in their lives … fierce competitor, he hated to lose. He got the most out of his teams. His teams got after it both ends of the floor. He was terrific, as you can imagine I would say (chuckle).
Q: How would you describe him as a father?
A: He was very I think demanding. There was structure in our lives. There was expectations to be met, whether it was academically or the standards of work ethic that he instilled in us to encourage us to practice at basketball. He kind of nurtured my love for basketball. He prepared me for life here down the line.
Q: Who was your boyhood idol?
A: My idols were the guys in my dad’s program. I followed a guy like Mandy Johnson, who played at Marquette, David Rivers played at Notre Dame, Kenny Wilson who played at Villanova. They were all point guards, and I got to see those guys every day or a bunch of days at my dad’s practices or workouts.
Q: Did you and Dan both dream about playing in the NBA?
A: It was more like I was on a playground imagining that I was driving by Isiah Thomas. That’s kind of (laugh) what I did when I was a young kid, you just don’t think that that could be real because you know what the stats say and the numbers say about making it to that point. I had enough self-awareness to know that it was going to be really tough to get to that level, but I was ready to pay the price to do whatever it takes to try and get there.
Q: What are you most proud of?
A: I think I got close to exhausting everything I could in terms of maximizing my ability that God gave me. I felt fortunate to grow up in a household where I could learn basketball the way I did. I think I had an advantage over most people. But I really just worked at it to the highest level that I could, and I think got almost the most out of my ability.
Q: When did you know you wanted to coach?
A: I always had an itch to do it. When my career didn’t end on my terms with injuries and my car accident, different things, I just felt like I had really done basketball my whole life and I just felt exhausted at how it ended for me, so I think some time away was necessary. But I always had an itch to do it as I’d watch March Madness or I’d go to one of my brother’s games at St. Benedict’s or a St. Anthony game, and I would say like, “This is what I was meant to do.” I was a little bit sidetracked and I got into it a little later, but I feel so happy and fortunate that I did it.
Q: What drives you?
A: The obvious things — you want to be successful, I want to do the best possible job I can for Arizona State and the fan base. But I think more than that for me it’s the players, and it’s the relationships I’ve been able to build both at Buffalo and at Arizona State with guys that I’ve coached and to see them go on and have success, like I take a lot of pride in knowing that a couple of guys I’ve coached have gotten to the NBA level and are having great success, and a number of guys are playing overseas, and other people, maybe the lessons that I’ve been able to teach them have impacted them and helped them in the real world. So that’s like bigger than just wins and losses for me.
Q: Criticism that may have stung or bothered you?
A: It’s kind of the nature of the business, the world that we’re in now. It’s like, “What have you done for me lately?” If COVID didn’t cancel the one season a few years back, and we were an 8-seed at Bracketology at that point, we would have been to three straight NCAA Tournaments for the first time at Arizona State since like 1960, and I would have been four of the last seven years. So I feel like I know how to get a team to have those type of seasons, and it’s very difficult to get to the NCAA Tournament. I feel like every year I’m going to attack each season and try and put us in a position to play in postseason, and I’m very motivated to try and do that this offseason.
Q: So Arizona State is in good hands with Bobby Hurley?
A: I think when I have what I need in terms of putting together the right group of people, that certainly know what to do with that. This is a place that certainly has been good to me, and this’ll be my 10th season here, and I’m excited about it. We’re transitioning to the Big 12, which is I think one of the premier basketball conferences in the country. I have the resources I need right now to put together a really good team.
Q: What was it like taking Buffalo to the NCAA Tournament in 2015?
A: It was special, because Buffalo had never been to the NCAA Tournament, and we were able to do it in two years. It was a great moment for my players, it’s something I’m chasing here where we haven’t won a conference tournament yet, but can still see it when the confetti was going down at Cleveland and seeing how great my players felt about being a champion. My former assistant, Nate Oats, was able to continue with the success there, so I take a lot of pride in that.
Q: Thoughts on Caitlin Clark?
A: It’s been a great story what she’s done. It’s like Steph Curry out there (chuckle). The type of shots she’s capable of making from the distance she takes them from, she’s got that fearlessness about her. It’s crazy how she’s kind of captured the attention of the sports world.
Q: Dinner guest?
A: Jesus.
Q: Favorite movie?
A: “Godfather.”
Q: Favorite actor?
A: Will Ferrell.
Q: Favorite actress?
A: Julia Roberts.
Q: Favorite singer/entertainer?
A: Bruce Springsteen.
Q: Favorite meal?
A: Anything Italian.
Q: You played against your brother once in college when he was at Seton Hall.
A: It was tough. I had to go against him, it’s not like we played different positions or something, we had to both guard each other. We were well beyond the 12- and 13-year-old Bobby Hurley-Danny Hurley one-on-one games at Country Village Park in Jersey City. This was more like hey, we’re really close friends, and mentally I always tried to create an edge on whoever I was playing against and disliked him if possible. Just it was impossible for me to do that in that game. It was just a really tough game for me to navigate.
Q: What role did Dan play for you after your near-tragic 1993 car crash?
A: We helped each other. He was going through a hard time for different reasons, and I was going through a life-changing experience. I went home to New Jersey, the Kings allowed me to recover back there. I was able to go visit with Dan a couple of days a week, go see him at Seton Hall, spend time with him. We had great conversations. It was great. In a really difficult set of circumstances for both of us, we both supported each other. And I ended up meeting my wife [Leslie], so it was a home run for me. I wouldn’t have my family if I didn’t have that accident.
Q: Do you remember fearing for your life?
A: In the moments that I was revived, there was only a few minutes before I went into the ambulance, and I don’t remember anything till I woke up the next morning. In those moments I didn’t think I was gonna make it. I never experienced that level of pain. My body was certainly in shock, too. That probably helped mask some of the pain. Mike Peplowski was the teammate that was on the scene at the accident when he was driving home right behind me right after I had left the arena. He was one of the persons I spoke to before I got into the ambulance. I just said, “Please tell everybody I loved them.”
Q: What’s it like for you watching nephew Andrew play for your brother?
A: It’s great. I see so much similarity in him and Dan, the mannerisms and everything. To see my nephew be a part of this, it’s unbelievable. My son Bobby is a walk-on here in Arizona State with me, so it’s been really special to have that relationship and to do it together like we’ve done it. I know that that’s gotta be what it is with Andrew and Dan, so it’s been a lot of fun seeing those guys do this.
Q: How would you love to coach against your brother during March Madness?
A: If it’s the final game, there wouldn’t be a better scenario. But I would prefer to not have to do that with him. That’s why we never would even consider scheduling each other. We would both hate it, I think, but we would at the end of the day fight for our players because they deserve us to do that.
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