Texas vs Purdue: What Sean Miller says is the key to March Madness matchup

Texas basketball coach Sean Miller , 57, is one of those basketball lifers of a certain vintage who fondly recalls Bobby Hurley, the tough-as-nails floor general in the early days of the Duke dynasty who melded a sky-high hoops IQ with plenty of street smarts. So, when Purdue point guard Braden Smith broke Hurley’s record for career assists in a 104-71 win over Queens in a first-round NCAA Tournament game last week, Miller took notice. “The fact that he broke Bobby Hurley's assist record, that has a lot of meaning to people my age and in my time in college,” said Miller, whose team faces Smith and Purdue in a Sweet 16 matchup Thursday in San Jose, Calif.

“You’ve just got to remember: Bobby Hurley played four years at Duke and got very deep into the tournament. The number of games that he played, the greatness that he played with, the teammates that he had. … there's a reason that that record has stood the test of time.

” Hurley played in 140 career games for Duke from the 1989-90 season through 1993 and ended his collegiate career with 1,076 assists and an average of 7. 7 assists per game. All those numbers translated to plenty of success; he led the Blue Devils to back-to-back national titles in 1991 and 1992.

His career overlapped two seasons with that of Miller, himself a scrappy point guard who started four seasons and played in 128 games for Pittsburgh from the 1987-88 season through 1992. Miller didn’t do too bad with the stats either, dishing out 744 career assists and averaging a robust 5. 8 assists per game to go along with 10.