- Slug: Sports-Hurley Schedule,460
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By CHRIS WIMMER
Cronkite News
TEMPE – Bobby Hurley remembered with a smile the first moment of his first nationally televised game as a freshman at Duke. He got dunked on.
“Off the tip, I was protecting the rim. The ball got tipped to Stevie Thompson. He took one dribble and threw an alley-oop to Billy Owens who dunked it right over me,” Hurley said. “So that was my baptism into nonconference play.”
Duke lost that game to top-ranked Syracuse in the second week of the season in 1990, but the matchup was a great teaching tool and provided the young Hurley with valuable experience against a quality opponent. It also looks great in March.
“Playing in those games, you love it as a player and that’s what I want our guys to taste,” Hurley said. “I believe that it pays dividends when the NCAA tournament committee is in that room examining your resume.”
Hurley is giving his team a big taste of that experience next season. After he assessed his squad following his hire on April 9, ASU signed up for one of the most challenging road games possible. The Sun Devils will travel to Kentucky on December 12.
The game falls in the middle of a four-game stretch that will see the team go to Creighton and UNLV and then face Texas A&M at home.
Hurley enjoyed playing challenging nonconference schedules under his former coach Mike Krzyzewski and he adopted the same philosophy while at Buffalo. Now he brings it to Tempe.
Next season’s nonconference schedule includes three teams who competed in last year’s NCAA tournament, and potentially four, before Christmas: Kentucky, St. John’s, LSU, and possibly NC State if both teams advance in a preseason tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
“If you are willing to play and schedule games, like the Kentucky game on December 12 and St. John’s on a neutral site and the Legends Classic in Brooklyn, all those events are important for us in terms of getting the exposure we want for the program and then also challenging our players to play those quality teams.”
Hurley believes the exposure that comes from playing games at the Barclays Center and Kentucky in a nationally televised game on CBS will benefit recruiting as well as boosting the resume of the program. Talent-rich states like California and Texas will be targets for ASU and now the coach can show recruits – and fans and alumni – the kinds of matchups they can expect in the future.
“I’m happy that people are excited. I want it to get off to a great start, gain some momentum this year and start building a program that people are going to be excited about.”
