Bobby Hurley’s Big NIL Play

The legendary Blue Devil has a Big Idea for the Sun Devils

Bobby Hurley has been at Arizona State since 2015, coming up on a decade now, and he’s just gotten a two-year extension.

He had a brilliant run at Buffalo before moving to Tempe. Arizona State is in the desert of course but it’s been a basketball desert for a long time too even as arch-rival Arizona rose to the top tier of college basketball programs. It’s been a tough road for the Sun Devils and Hurley has struggled at times like virtually every ASU coach has.

In more modern times, say since the Arizona schools joined the PAC-10 in 1978, almost everyone has failed. Ned Wulk had a long run from 1962-63 and took the program into the PAC-10 before departing in 1982.

Bob Weinhauer, best known to Duke fans as the Penn coach who called the 1978 team “lumbering elephants” before the Blue Devils destroyed Villanova in the regional finals, washed out next in just three seasons.

Steve Patterson, who played for John Wooden at UCLA, lasted less than four seasons and only broke .500 once.

Bill Frieder lasted eight years. Don Newman lasted one. Rob Evans made it eight and Herb Sendek made it nine before Hurley took over.

Since joining the PAC-12 in 1978, the Sun Devils have only had nine 20-win seasons and just three seasons with 24 wins or more (by more we mean 25. Let’s not get crazy).

Add in the vast changes that are sweeping college basketball, not to mention the collapse of the PAC-12, and it’s no wonder Hurley has had a tough time at ASU.

Well he may have found a way to do something about it and if it works, it’s a potential game changer.

Basically Hurley is apparently pitching a documentary series about his playing and coaching career with the idea that it’ll help raise NIL money.

If he pulls that off, it’s going to be really, really interesting - and something that a lot of other programs will quickly emulate.