Bobby Hurley stands by his decision to pull his Arizona State Sun Devils off the court immediately after the buzzer sounded Saturday in a loss to the rival Arizona Wildcats.
The head coach maintains that he was trying to diffuse the situation after ASU’s BJ Freeman headbutted Wildcats guard Caleb Love late in the game, prompting a double ejection.
It was, in his mind, a choice between risking further escalations in a handshake line or heading to the locker room early.
“I think it was in the best interest of the group to remove the group,” Hurley told Arizona Sports’ Bickley & Marotta on Tuesday. “That could have been something our players did that I can’t foresee or something that maybe Arizona would do. But it was going bad.
“Just had to trust my instincts and do what’s in the best interest of the program.”
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But Hurley does have a regret.
Hurley took flak for not shaking Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd’s hand himself. He said Tuesday he was caught up in the moment and focused on getting his players off the court.
“The only thing I’ll say is, once I got the starters off the floor and got them to the locker room and knew that my entire team was gone, I should have walked over and shook Tommy’s hand,” Hurley said. “If I could do anything over I would have done that. Tommy and I spoke and we discussed the end of the game. We’re good. We’re on really good terms and we always have been.”
Hurley after the game blamed Arizona’s “relentless, constant chatter” that built up over the game for pushing Freeman over the edge in the 81-72 loss.
The coach’s ire was directed at Love specifically. After the game, Hurley suggested he wouldn’t be giving the Wildcats’ leading scorer his All-Big 12 vote at the end of the season because of the content of Love’s yapping.
After the game, Lloyd admitted he didn’t see what precipitated the headbutt play and whether his players were at fault.
“I got a lot of respect for Bobby and Arizona State,” Lloyd said, adding he had no problem with how the Sun Devils left the court without the traditional handshake line.
“That could be a good decision if things got chippy,” he added. “You know what I mean? I’m not going to question their decision to do that. I’m not going to hold it against anybody. We obviously did not want anything else to escalate. We totally understand why that was done.”
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