Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley rips team for ‘disturbing’ lack of effort in event benefitting cancer research

Bobby Hurley’s second season at Arizona State hit another big setback on Tuesday night when Purdue ran the Sun Devils out of the gym at the Jimmy V Classic. Purdue dominated all facets of the game on the way to a 97-64 victory. Hurley sounded like a broken man when it was over.

“For a city that’s a blue-collar city and an arena that has so much tradition and so many good players that have played on this court — to look like that, it was embarrassing,” he said. “And then the cause, such a great cause that we’re playing for tonight. Did my players play as hard as the people that are going through what they go through in cancer, as families go through in their personal situations? I don’t think so.”

Purdue finished with a 44-28 advantage in rebounding and a 26-11 advantage in assists while shooting a blistering 59.4 percent from the field.

Meanwhile, Arizona State shot 35.8 percent from the floor and made only four of the 26 three-pointers attempted.

“That was really disturbing, how we competed,” Hurley said. “It’s not a reflection of my personality or the teams I’ve coached in the past, so we have to make some changes. We had a nice win against UNLV and defended and played pretty hard, but tonight we just didn’t do that.”