I doubt that I was the only person in the John Paul Jones Arena tonight who hoped Tony Bennett would shock the world on Tony Bennett Day.
Just imagine, Bennett grabbing the mic, looking around the arena, and saying, Guys, now that I’ve had some time off, I’m feeling refreshed, I want to run it back, whaddya say?
That would have measured on the Richter scale.
Alas.
It was never more clear that this is not going to happen than it was when, mic in hand, standing there at center court, in front of the world, Bennett pointed up at the 2019 national championship banner.
“Dad,” he said, referencing his father, Dick Bennett, himself a legendary basketball coach, the innovator of the Pack Line defense, “I can remember when I got this job, you said, Son, if you’re going to build a program at Virginia, try to find players and hire coaches that are all about the pillars, and if you find that, if they’ll go through the adversity with you and stick with it for the long haul, you just might have a chance to touch something great.
“And you know what? When I look at all those ACC championships, and I look at that national championship banner.”
Here, Tony paused, for effect.
“Which might be the last amateur national championship banner.”
Another pause.
“I think we touched greatness,” he said.
COVID kept us from getting a national champion in 2020, and actually, Baylor, led by Scott Drew, in 2021, completed its championship run before the new NIL/transfer portal rules went into effect on July 1, 2021, so maybe that Baylor 2021 banner is the actual last amateur banner.
But Bennett’s point was made.
ICYMI
- UVA Basketball: Tony Bennett, with humility, decides, it’s finally time
- UVA Basketball: Tony Bennett passes the torch to right-hand man Ron Sanchez
- UVA Basketball: The next challenge for Tony Bennett is fixing college athletics
His approach was perfect for a school like Virginia in the pre-NIL/transfer portal era, when you could recruit players that would be able to learn and develop as underclassmen, and fit into a system with older players who could play the Pack Line D and the mover/blocker offense, both of which are counterintuitive in terms of how kids play the game in high school and the travel-ball circuit.
The NIL/transfer portal era that we’re in now has rosters overhauling every spring, which means coaches who do anything more than roll the ball out for the kids to run up and down the court have to take their lumps in November and December, into January, as their players learn the system.
Which is what we’ve been seeing from this year’s UVA team.
The 75-61 win over a Georgia Tech team that won at Clemson earlier in the week – tonight, Clemson beat #2 Duke at home – was the second in a row and third in four games, and got the ‘Hoos to a 12-12 mark on the season.
ICYMI
- UVA Basketball: ‘Hoos, on Tony Bennett Day, dispatch Georgia Tech, 75-61
- UVA Basketball: The ‘Hoos seem to finally be getting it, maybe too late, but still
It’s starting to feel like, maybe, just maybe, this team has figured it out.
It might be too late, though, for Ron Sanchez, Bennett’s long-time right-hand man and interim successor, to be able to get the full-time gig after the season.
I’d like to see how much more we can get out of this group, now that the kids seem to know what they’re doing, but it may be too late.
Wasn’t supposed to be this way.
The script called for Bennett to hand the reins over to his guy, and for Bennett to, then, be the paterfamilias, with Sanchez and a staff of assistants and former players who have grown into being assistants drilling the next generation in Tony Bennett Basketball.
Which works, by the way – the evidence including all the banners, and all his guys who have gone on to careers in the NBA.
Two of those guys made a surprise drop-in on Bennett on Saturday.
“Ty surprised me. I didn’t know he was coming. He played last night against the Wizards, and he brought De’Andre,” Bennett said, acknowledging 2019 stars Ty Jerome and De’Andre Hunter, who are now both key guys for the Cleveland Cavaliers, right now the NBA’s best team, with a 42-10 record.
“Maybe those two are gonna hang up an NBA Finals banner here one day. I’d love to see that,” Bennett said.
One day, but in the meantime, we did get a new banner Saturday night – honoring Tony Bennett, whose name now hangs in the rafters beside a banner honoring another legendary UVA Basketball coach, Terry Holland.
“It was the time of a lifetime,” Bennett said, “for 15 years, to get to coach all these guys and watch them hold in front of you. God bless you. Once a ‘Hoo, always a ‘Hoo. Thank you so much.”
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Chris Graham
