Bobby Hurley, Coach K reunite, reminisce before Duke basketball plays Arizona State

Posted by Admin October 26, 2024 Basketball

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DURHAM — Bobby Hurley never wanted to come back to Cameron Indoor Stadium.

A two-time national champion with Duke basketball and the NCAA’s all-time assists leader, Hurley never needed closure with the Blue Devils. With head coach Mike Krzyzewski, along with teammates Christian Laettner and Grant Hill, Hurley helped build Duke’s basketball empire.

Standing on Coach K Court as the head coach of Arizona State, which plays Duke in a charity exhibition game on Sunday (7 p.m., ACC Network) to benefit the Duke Children’s Hospital, the 53-year-old Hurley reminisced about “the great memories” from his time with the Blue Devils.

Rocking his 1992 national championship ring on Saturday afternoon, Hurley answered questions from media members as his No. 11 jersey hung as one of 13 retired numbers in the rafters.

He highlighted the feeling of standing on a stage after Duke’s first national title in 1991, seeing students and fans celebrating the breakthrough. He pointed to “the wars” with rival North Carolina and senior day on Feb. 28, 1993, the day his jersey was retired. On that night, Hurley had 19 points and 15 assists in a 78-67 win against UCLA.

“I never wanted to come back here because it was so good to me,” Hurley said. “That’s why I’m nervous that I’m on the other side of this now. But we’ll see what happens (Sunday) night.”

Entering his 10th season with the Sun Devils, Hurley smiled as he pointed to the visitors’ bench at Cameron before saying, “It’s not a lot of fun to be on this bench, though, I know that.”

Between his coaching career and spending time with his family, Hurley hasn’t been a regular at Cameron Indoor Stadium. He came a couple years after his Duke career ended, but said he “felt weird not being on the floor.”

“I didn’t need closure,” he said. “I think the way I left it was pretty good, but it’s just another taste, another way to kind of say goodbye.”

Coach K ‘absolutely loved coaching’ Bobby Hurley at Duke

Before Bobby Hurley started to observe Arizona State’s practice on Saturday afternoon at Cameron Indoor Stadium, he walked down the baseline to reunite with his former coach Mike Krzyzewski.

As Hurley and Krzyzewski embraced, three Sun Devils paused on the court to take in the moment between their coach and a man who led Duke to five national titles before retiring in 2022.

“Bobby’s one of the greatest players ever in college basketball, not just at Duke,” Krzyzewski said.

The 77-year-old Krzyzewski rattled off Hurley’s accomplishments from 1990-93 as a three-time Final Four participant, two-time national champion and the NCAA’s all-time leader in assists (1,076), calling Hurley “as courageous a player as could be.”

“I absolutely loved coaching Bobby. I played point guard, and I coached him like I wish I was him,” Krzyzewski said with a smile.

“He had the most freedom, because he was instinctively terrific. We hardly ran any plays with him. When he brought that ball down the damn court, something good was gonna happen.”

Most people are familiar with “The Shot,” Christian Laettner’s buzzer-beating jumper against Kentucky in the 1992 NCAA Tournament that sent Duke to the Final Four before the Blue Devils completed a run of back-to-back championships.

But Hurley, as Krzyzewski referenced, hit a shot that helped Duke win its first title in 1991.

Trailing UNLV — which had beaten Duke by 30 in the 1990 championship and entered the game as winners of 45 straight — by five points with 2:20 left to play, Hurley caught a pass on the left wing and, without hesitation, fired a 3-pointer that ripped the net with 2:16 on the clock.

“I was getting ready to make a big coaching change, and this sucker comes down the court, he’s not looking at the bench, he’s just, ‘Boom,’” Krzyzewski said of Hurley.

“I get chills thinking about it. It’s really one of the great shots of all time, and in an epic game.”

Hurley’s shot was the spark in an 8-1 finishing run for the Blue Devils, who raised a national championship trophy for the first time in program history.

Krzyzewski also recalled a time in practice when he and Tommy Amaker, one of Krzyzewski’s assistant coaches at the time, watched as Hurley applied pressure on a ball handler.

“I told Tommy, I said, ‘I’ve never seen anybody work that hard. I’m not making him work that hard, he just works that hard,’” Krzyzewski said.

Hurley brought that same intensity, Krzyzewski added, in post-practice workouts.

“He prepared to win. After every practice, he would go on the StairMaster for a half hour to 45 minutes and try to break the record he had,” Krzyzewski said.

“He’d even leave notes for his teammates to try and beat that. They couldn’t. He never got tired. … I never wanted to sub him and didn’t very much.”

When asked about the coaching advice he’s provided Hurley, Krzyzewski kept it simple with two areas that helped Hurley become one of the sport’s all-time greats.

“Follow his heart and follow his instincts,” Krzyzewski said. “. … Kids should want to play for him, because he’s done it. None of them are as good as he was. They may not know that. If I told them, maybe they wouldn’t believe me. But this kid was special.”

So, do the Sun Devils realize how good Hurley was at Duke as they prepare for their own matchup with the Blue Devils?

“Not really. It’s 30 years plus, the video’s really grainy,” Hurley said with a smile. “I think one of our guys watched it and said they respected it, so that was good enough for me.”

Staff writer Rodd Baxley can be reached at rbaxley@fayobserver.com or @RoddBaxley on X/Twitter.