What Bobby Hurley said after Arizona State finished the BYU game with one starter
Bobby Hurley didn’t need to look at his bench during the second half of Wednesday’s loss to BYU — all of his available players were already on the court.
With Jayden Quaintance hurt, Alston Mason sick and BJ Freeman no longer on the team, Arizona State (13-15, 4-13) entered the game down three starters.
When senior guard Adam Miller went down with a hip injury and was forced to the bench with 13:09 to play in the game, Hurley had five scholarship players left: veterans Basheer Jihad and Shawn Phillips Jr., and true freshmen Joson Sanon, Amier Ali and Trevor Best.
“The universe is talking about something right now to me, and I don’t know what it is,” Hurley said after the game.
Those five players played every second of the final 13:09 of the game, putting in a valiant effort in a 91-81 loss to No. 25 BYU (20-8, 11-6).
After the game Hurley reflected on his team’s gutty peformance and where the Sun Devils go from here. Here are the highlights of his postgame press conference.
Hurley on Trevor Best’s big game
(Best, who enrolled at Arizona State in late December, had played nine total minutes of college basketball coming into the game. He scored a career-high 18 points in 24 minutes off the bench.)
“He was a bright spot. I usually don’t talk real positively after a game, and single somebody out. But yeah … that kid was in high school in December and got to us and hasn’t had a lot of time to really adjust to being here and playing this level. So that was certainly a bright spot. I’m just glad he’s healthy too after the game, by the way.”
Hurley on Alston Mason’s illness
“That was a tough one because it was yesterday he came in and he didn’t practice. But he didn’t look good. He watched the film part of getting ready, and then he left and we sent him home. And then he was again at film at shootaround and he didn’t do anything either, but I thought he was going to play. And then he just was really sick all afternoon, and he called me late in the afternoon and I found out. … I can’t risk sending someone out that can’t go. That’s why I shut Adam Miller down because he wasn’t moving good. In the second half he got a couple of minutes out there and he wasn’t looking right.”
Hurley on Adam Miller’s injury
“When you see Adam Miller go down and then he can’t really come back, it’s just a microcosm of everything that’s happened. That’s why I said ‘is the universe talking and saying something? Are things just not meant to be?’ Because when I walked in the building I had (Miller) for like 38 to 40 minutes, if he’s not in foul trouble. Knowing who’s going to be out and not available and all the stuff, and then he goes down really early. … I’m scared to wake up. I hope I wake up tomorrow. I hope I will, but I’m scared to to see what tomorrow brings.”
Hurley on Jayden’s Quaintance’s status
“JQ was certainly out tonight. He’s going to be out on Saturday as well. He’s got a right knee (injury) and his family is just doing their due diligence with the medical. We’re not sure or going to put a timetable on when he’ll return.”
‘I thought (BYU) would be an NCAA Tournament type team’
“When we played them the first time it was our first league game. They had a really solid non-conference and they probably should have beat Ole Miss. They lost in overtime. Watching them, they looked a lot better on film and I saw a team that day that I thought would be an NCAA Tournament type team, and that’s what they are. They are strong, they’ve got really good shooting, they run good stuff and they’re older. They have a lot of old guys on their team. Not all of them are old, but some of them.”
Hurley on his team continuing to respond to adversity
“It’s not easy. I give them a lot of credit, a lot of respect for not mailing it in. Not putting their head down or feeling sorry for themselves. I thought we did the best we could and the score … I think they were better. I mean they had more options, more guys. We had guys playing that haven’t really played much or aren’t in these roles or haven’t been all year. And that’s just the circumstances we’re in. But they all stepped up and they gave us something and they fought again.”
Hurley on ASU’s strength of schedule
“They’re tough kids and we’ve been in a lot of hard games this year. I mean our strength of schedule is super high. It’s one of the top 10 or 15 or whatever it is in the country. We’ve played a lot of good teams and been in a lot of close games. They haven’t really backed out of many games so far and that’s just in their nature to try really hard.”
