By JOSH NEWMAN
St. Anthony Hall of Fame head coach Bob Hurley famously said he would never schedule a game against St. Benedict’s Prep when his son, Dan Hurley, was the head coach, because his wife, Chris, wouldn’t allow it.
Pretty much in tune with that thinking, don’t expect Dan, now the head coach at Rhode Island, to schedule a regular-season game against his older brother, Bobby Hurley, who was named head coach at Arizona State in April.
A regular-season game may not be in the cards, but at least one of the brothers would welcome an NCAA Tournament matchup.
“We hope to compete against each other,” Dan told SNY.tv on the 4 Quarters Podcast Monday afternoon. “I don’t know that you’ll see us ever schedule regular-season games, but we certainly would love to play against each other in the NCAA Tournament. That would certainly mean that we’re both doing well.”
College basketball season doesn’t begin for another five months, but there is no harm in dreaming of an All-Hurley game come March.
Bobby already has some buzz going in Tempe as he and his staff have swiftly entered the Thon Maker Sweepstakes, while also securing immediate help in junior college transfers Andre Speight and Maurice O’Field. He also recently scored a commitment from former 4-star North Carolina State commit Torian Graham, who was sitting out his transfer year at Buffalo under Hurley.
Meanwhile, Dan and Rhode Island are in line to make serious noise. Kuran Iverson has been ruled immediately eligible for next season, and the Rams return EC Matthews, Jarvis Garrett, Jared Terrell and Hassan Martin from a team that went 23-10 and lost to Dayton in the semifinals of the Atlantic 10 Tournament.
Rhode Island is the likely preseason favorite to win the A-10 next season and one could argue it is NCAA Tournament or bust with the amount of talent Hurley has at his disposal.
“We’re just excited with where we’re at right now,” Dan said. “I really think that the sky’s the limit for this group, so to speak. We have a great combination now of experience and athleticism and talent. We’ve established I think a hard-working culture here, but when you return guys of the caliber of EC Mattthews, Hassan Martin, Jared Terrell, Jarvis Garrett and you have some other talented pieces to put out there with them, you have a legitimate chance to compete for a championship in our league.”
The mere notion of the Hurleys ever squaring off seemed impossible just a few years ago.
By 2010, Dan had turned St. Benedict’s Prep into a national power with the likes of Cleveland Cavaliers and NBA Finals participants J.R. Smith and Tristan Thompson. At that time, Bobby was a racehorse owner and breeder in Florida.
On April 13, 2010, Dan took the head-coaching job at Wagner and he brought Bobby on as an assistant. The pair spent two seasons on Staten Island before Dan got the Rhode Island job in 2012. Bobby came along as an assistant for one season before scoring his first head-coaching gig at Buffalo in 2013.
By March, Bobby had risen Buffalo from anonymity and into the NCAA Tournament after the Bulls won the MAC Tournament. That run helped score him a Power Five job at Arizona State and now, we are left to wonder what an NCAA Tournament game between the siblings would be like.
“Coaching with Bob those couple of years was an awesome time for both of us, a chance to reconnect after kind of being apart for several years,” Dan said. “To see the success he had at Buffalo, it was so exciting for me and for our entire family. To see him take that next step in his career, it was something something he obviously wanted to do and he was given the opportunity to move to a great part of the country and run a Pac 12 program. It’s super-exciting.”
Photo: USA Today Sports
