With just under three minutes left, Arizona pulled away from Arizona State to win the Grand Canyon-adjacent rivalry game, 81-72, on Saturday. It had been a sleepy start to the game, with both teams combining to hit a mere 23 shots and commit 19 fouls in the first half. Basheer Jihad kicked some life into the Sun Devils at the beginning of the second half with a pair of dunks and a three-pointer to grab a five-point lead. Alas, it was not meant to be. Caleb Love, last seen hitting a ridiculous half court three to force overtime on way to a win against Iowa State Monday night, led the comeback hitting multiple threes as the Wildcats went on a run.
Things were almost wrapped up with about 30 seconds left on the clock when Love was jawing with Arizona State's BJ Freeman under the hoop during an out of bounds play and, well, Freeman replied ... headfirst. Both were ejected, and Arizona State Coach Bobby Hurley yanked his team from the floor as the final buzzer sounded, bypassing the handshake line and customary pleasantries.
That was not when things got weird. During the postgame press conference Hurley found time to somehow turn his team into the victims of a greater injustice. If there was a real villain Saturday, it wasn't the headbutter in question or his coach, but the whole damn institution of Arizona basketball.
"It was relentless, constant chatter from a couple of Arizona's players that wasn't being policed properly. And of course, they're going to be happy with winning, but it was done with no class, in my opinion," Hurley said following the game.
Scurrilous language in a professional sporting game? Obscene! What basketball coach does not love to defend his guys vigorously against the haters, the doubters, the unfriendly media who are clearly pulling for the absolute failure of you and your program. Arizona coach Tommy Lloyd did his own version of this after the game, saying: "When tough things happen, we want to be a program that responds with class, and I don't know if we did or didn't. But it was a tough moment in an emotional game. I've got a lot of respect for Bobby and Arizona State's players."
Bobby Hurley believes there is no class detected amongst the Wildcats, even though it was his player who decided to let his dome do the talking in the garbage time of a tough loss at home. Bobby Hurley said policed! This makes sense when you consider the cop-forward way Hurley assessed the end of the game during the press conference. He had no choice but to initiate an ocular pat-down of the situation and enact a swift extraction of his team out of an abundance of caution for all parties involved:
"Words that were said back and forth led to the exchange with Freeman, and he lost his cool with the constant talk that was allowed to go on. I had to make the decision, in the best interest of our team, to get them into the locker room so there were no incidents the rest of the game."
Spoken like a man ready to plant drugs on a 6-year-old just to enforce a noise complaint against a birthday party. This is police report coded! This is giving "I feared for my life" and expect to be off desk duty in a month after getting cleared by internal affairs.
Hurley further cemented his status as "college coach most likely to hector a Chipotle manager into giving him free guacamole after complaining quesadillas are too woke," when he capped his remarks with the most petty threat against Caleb Love: "Yes, I do get a vote for all conference, and I can tell you who is not getting a vote."
Feelings are not facts, Bobbert! You simply cannot be the instigator and the victim of a crime all at the same time! You can't go around headbutting people on a basketball court, man! Come on!
