Tommy Lloyd understands ASU decision to leave the floor early

During his postgame press conference, Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd discussed the decision by Arizona State head coach Bobby Hurley to remove his team from the floor without a postgame handshake. With 30 seconds remaining in the game, Arizona State guard B.J. Freeman head butted Arizona star guard Caleb Love.

The game was chippy throughout. Hurley was called for a technical foul in the first half. Later in the opening 20 minutes Arizona guard Jaden Bradley earned his own technical foul for taunting the Arizona State bench after scoring. Love led all scorers on Saturday afternoon with 27 point.

Freeman led Arizona State with 19 points. The biggest lead by either team was the 81-72 final score in the Arizona win. Arizzona had the biggest lead in the first half at 17-9. Most of the game was a one or two possession score. Emotions were high on the court and throughout social media after the game.

Jason Scheer of Wildcat Authority transcribed the post-game thoughts from Lloyd. Lloyd did not question the decision by Hurley to remove his team from the floor after the game. Hurley called the Arizona players classless with in his words, their chatter throughout the game.

"I didn't see what had happened...There obviously was an altercation between Caleb and Freeman. Caleb reacted. Sounds like he got head butted. I have not seen the video, so I don't know one way or another what to say. It's disappointing probably on all sides. We want to be a program where if tough things happen, we want to respond with class...I have a lot of respect for Bobby and Arizona State.

I'm not going to question their decision to do that...We obviously didn't want anything else to escalate and I totally understand why that was done."

Arizona head coach Tommy Lloyd

Hurley was quoted;/ in his postgame press conference by the 247Sports website SunDevil Source as stating "I just saw that it was very heated and there were possibilities that something else could have happened and I was going to avoid that. I wanted to avoid any further confrontation."

The decision by Hurley has sent reverberations throughout college basketball. Hurley's decision has been covered by the major sports media sites. Hurley took exception to what he stated was constant chatter near the Arizona State bench. It is not surprising emotions ran high during a rivalry game.

"Right near our bench, it was relentless, constant chatter from a couple of Arizona's players that wasn't being policed properly,...Of course, they're going to be happy with winning, but it was done with no class, in my opinion." Arizona was called for two technicals on Saturday and Arizona State one.

Hurley doubled down after the game by referencing Love "I can tell you this: I do get a vote for all-conference and I can tell you who's not getting a vote...You can read into that. I'm sure you might know who I'm [referring to.]" Arizona State plays at Arizona on March 4 in the final home game for the Wildcats this season.