New Arizona State coach Bobby Hurley on rivalry with Arizona: ‘It takes two to tango’
Apr 10, 2015, 5:59 PM | Updated: 11:39 pm
A reporter from Tucson posed a pretty innocuous and reasonable question to new Arizona State University men’s basketball coach Bobby Hurley at his introductory press conference Friday morning.
“I was just wondering, how much stock do you put into rivalry games and, I guess, how familiar are you with the rivalry with Arizona?”
Arizona State University president Michael Crow chimed in first, pointing out to Hurley that the reporter was based in Tucson. Then Hurley answered.
“I got a feel for it already,” Hurley said with some laughter. “Just the brief amount of time that I’ve been in town, you get at taste for it. I’ve been in a few of those myself in my day, just with Duke and (North) Carolina and what that means.
“It’s going to be a lot of fun; it takes two to tango.”
Of late, the two schools have made pretty good dancing partners.
Crow told Hurley he should ask the reporter how the rivalry has been going lately.
During the nine years Herb Sendek was guiding the Sun Devils, ASU went 9-10 against Arizona and earned series splits in three of the last four seasons. Since 2007-08 ASU is 9-8 against the Wildcats. In short, what was once a lopsided matchup has been a bit more even of late, at least when the two programs have matched up on the hardwood.
“It’s kind of what I stated in my remarks,” Hurley said. “I live for those kind of games, and as a competitor I think I’m a top competitor and those are the games I want to play and compete in. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”
About the same time this was going on, the University of Arizona men’s basketball twitter account sent out what would otherwise seem like a random tweet meant only to promote its program.
This. Is. Arizona. pic.twitter.com/LbWM9FNSpz
— Arizona Basketball (@APlayersProgram) April 10, 2015
Perhaps this had something to do with the press conference taking place about 110 miles to the north?
On the heels of Arizona coach Sean Miller telling fans who are upset with what his team has accomplished to “Go cheer for ASU!”, it would seem as though the in-state rivalry is about be taken up a notch or two.
And as Hurley said, it’s going to be a lot of fun.
