What Bobby Hurley said after Arizona State's 104-47 loss to Duke
Bobby Hurley's much-anticipated return to Duke went about as he expected.
A two-time All-American who led the Blue Devils to back-to-back national championships, Hurley was front and center for dozens of lopsided blowouts as a player in Cameron Indoor Stadium. Now he has witnessed one as the opposing coach.
Fortunately for Hurley and his Arizona State basketball team, Sunday's 104-47 blowout loss to Duke did not count. Dubbed the Brotherhood Run, the game was played as a charity exhibition benefiting the Duke Children's Hospital.
"My granddaughter's never gonna remember this game," Hurley said after the game. "She's three months old, thank god. It was her first game, so hopefully there will be better days ahead for her. Sometimes you should leave well enough alone or something. That's why I never wanted to come back here. I lost two games here or something. We used to do this to everybody. It was a tough night."
Hurley's rebuilt ASU team could not buy a basket in the first half, but they scrapped and clawed on the defensive end to keep the game respectable. Duke led 37-21 at halftime behind 9 points from Caleb Foster and 7 apiece from Cooper Flagg and Tyrese Proctor. Basheer Jihad, a Ball State transfer, led the Sun Devils with 10 points.
In the second half, Duke poured it on. The Blue Devils drained 15-of-23 (65.2%) 3-pointers in the second half on their way to a 66-point explosion. Many of their 3-pointers came in transition when ASU failed to get back and identify shooters. Duke scored 17 points in transition. Arizona State did not have a single transition basket.
"It's not like I didn't come out and play the guys that shouldn't have been on the floor," Hurley said. "I wasn't like experimenting tonight and like this just happened to us. We got our ass kicked. And it was with them having arguably their All-American and best player just playing like half the game too. Hats off to where they are and 'oh s***' about where we are right now."
Flagg, a preseason favorite for national player of the year and the likely No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, finished with 9 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists. He was 3-for-9 from the field and missed both of his 3-pointers.
The star for Duke was 6-foot-7 freshman guard Kon Knueppel, who scored 19 points in 21 minutes (4-for-8 from downtown). The Blue Devils started the second half on a 30-10 run, extending their lead to 67-31 run with 12 minutes left in the game. Knueppel did most of his damage during this run, connecting on four 3-pointers, including a four-point play.
Freshman Jayden Quaintance led Arizona State with 11 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 2 blocks. Jihad finished with 11 points and 3 rebounds. The Sun Devils shot 6-for-24 from the 3-point line and 16-for-57 from the field (28.1 percent). They also turned the ball over 18 times and were outrebounded 47-31.
"To know in my four years [at Duke] that what just happened has happened before and it could happen to me. And it did," said Hurley. "I quietly was a little concerned because I don't think we were as impressive as I thought we would be in our closed scrimmage, and that was against a lesser opponent. And now in one week you're now at Duke with their roster and the way they're coached."
"Jon [Scheyer] is doing a great job here. Just seeing it first hand, just the commitment they have to guarding and guarding with physicality and multiple efforts. All the things we decided not to do. We did it in spurts in the first half. On offense we were incapable of generating points in the first half. We still hung around enough, but the second half we were a disaster on defense to give up that many points.
"There's not a category that we did well. I think we had six or seven turnovers in our closed scrimmage and that was pretty good. ... We had 18 today, so not much carryover there. That being said we've got like nine days so we've got a lot of work to do for our first game."
Arizona State opens its 2024-25 season on Tuesday, Nov. 5 at home vs. Idaho State.
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Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. One of his favorite memories was covering the 1999 Fiesta Bowl - the first BCS National Championship Game - at Sun Devil Stadium.