Bobby Hurley and John Pelphrey, Linked by History, Confront Coaching Uncertainty

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Thirty-four years ago this month, Bobby Hurley and John Pelphrey were the quintessential “coach on the floor” players in the greatest college basketball game ever played—Duke 104, Kentucky 103 in the East Regional final. They were smart, relentless, passionate extensions of Hall of Fame coaches Mike Krzyzewski and Rick Pitino. In a way, their basketball lives became intertwined that dramatic night in Philadelphia.

Their jerseys hang in the rafters at blueblood schools: Hurley’s at Duke, where he was the star point guard on two national championship teams; Pelphrey’s at Kentucky, where he helped resuscitate a program decimated by NCAA sanctions. Then they followed what seemed like manifest destiny into the coaching profession.

This March, both are at career crossroads.

Pelphrey, 57, was fired as coach at Tennessee Tech last week. Hurley, 54, is reportedly on his way out at Arizona State, a decision made well before a 49-point massacre against Iowa State in the Big 12 tournament—the most lopsided game in Big 12 men’s tourney history and the Sun Devils’ worst loss in 70 years. (As of shortly after the game Wednesday, Hurley had not been told anything about his status by athletic director Graham Rossini.)

If you had asked me in 1992 what two college players had the best chance to become national champion coaches, I would have confidently named Hurley and Pelphrey. Turns out I got the wrong Hurley—little brother Danny has two championship rings at Connecticut. And I got the wrong former Pitino player—Billy Donovan won two titles at Florida.

Bobby Hurley and Pelphrey have had good coaching careers. They positively impacted players’ lives, made money, had winning seasons and took teams to the NCAA tournament. But to this point, in their mid-50s, they have not hit the highest notes.

Pelphrey had a winning record at South Alabama from 2002 to ’07, taking the Jaguars to the Big Dance in ’06. Then he had a winning record at Arkansas, going 69–59, but an NCAA bid his first season was followed by three misses at a place that wants to be a regular. Tennessee Tech was a thankless rebound job—the Golden Eagles lost the Ohio Valley Conference championship game in overtime in 2023, but Pelphrey wound up 59 games below .500 in seven seasons.

John Pelphrey was fired by Tennessee Tech earlier this month. | Saul Young/News Sentinel / USA TODAY NETWORK

Hurley took longer to get into coaching, then burst on the scene at Buffalo with two winning seasons and the school’s first NCAA bid. That got him the job at Arizona State, where he is the second-winningest coach in program history, with 185 victories in 11 seasons.

He took the Sun Devils to three NCAA tournaments, though it was always nip and tuck to make the field—his ASU teams were No. 11 seeds all three times. Things tailed off the last three seasons, with a combined 44–54 record in that time.

Moving to the brutal Big 12 was tough, with the Sun Devil (17–16) splaying the 10th-hardest schedule in the country this season, according to KenPom. The new revenue sharing and NIL landscape has been arduous—Hurley says Arizona State is “on the very lower tier of NIL in our league.”

But with rival Arizona rising back to the elite echelon of the sport under Tommy Lloyd, that increased the pressure in Tempe, Ariz. Hurley said his most recent rosters have been “one player or two short in a certain way. We had a missing piece that we needed and it’s hard when you can’t afford to miss [on player evaluation].”

As for the future? If it ends at Arizona State, as appears imminent, he wants to keep coaching. Soon.

“I love doing what I’m doing,” Hurley said. “I feel like I’m still in my prime right now. I don’t think I would take an assistant position at this time. I may look in media if there wasn’t something that made sense for me this year in this cycle, but I don’t want to waste time. I got like 10 years I think I could be doing this, and I don’t want to stop unless there isn’t something that makes sense for me.”

Hurley said that outside the Arizona State locker room in the T-Mobile Center here. As is always the case when a season ends, player emotions are raw. Arizona State senior Allen Mukeba was in tears in the postgame news conference. Hurley was balancing his own career crossroads with those of his players, some of whom saw their careers come to an end.

It has been a long, often glorious, sometimes painful, basketball life for Hurley. The son of a legendary high school coach in Jersey City, N.J., has seen it all, good and bad.

“I grew up in a basketball household,” Hurley says. “My dad impacted kids, and I watched it happen my whole life. The biggest thing, regardless of winning championships or this other stuff, it’s more about relationships and the players I can coach. That means the most to me.

“I don’t have any regrets. I laid it out on the line as best I could every night. I did it until the last buzzer sounds.”

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