Bennett on UVA-Virginia Tech rivalry: ‘A lot of intensity, but respect, it’s not a hatred’

The Virginia–Virginia Tech basketball rivalry isn’t quite at the level of intensity of the schools’ football rivalry.

OK, it’s hard to call the football one a rivalry; Tech owns Virginia, which has two wins in the annual series since 1999.

The basketball series is much tighter – Virginia has won six of the last 10, but Tech has taken two of the last five.

But for a number of reasons, it’s not the same as football.

“The football rivalry is, it’s a little different, I think in that regard. It’s once a year, it’s that last game of the year, and there’s so much, but this is important, but because you have so many games in conference, and you’re on a journey, you look at it and, you know, you play them, and you got to play Saturday to get after it,” UVA coach Tony Bennett told reporters on Monday, ahead of the first game between the ‘Hoos and Hokies in the 2023-2024 season, set for Wednesday in JPJ.

That there are two basketball games is one of the issues in terms of the different feel. There’s also a factor of the relative lack of Virginia kids on either roster – UVA has two (walk-ons Desmond Roberts and Tristan How), and Tech has two (UNC transfer Tyler Nickel and Northwestern transfer Robbie Beran).

The football rosters: Virginia Tech has 59 Virginia kids, UVA has 56.

There’s interest from the fans and alums any time Virginia and Virginia Tech meet in an athletics contest, of course.

“When you’re in the spot, we just want to play as well as we can and try to be as successful as we can, no matter who the opponent is, but certainly, it generates excitement, you know, when you’re playing your in-state rival, and, you know, both of us, they’ve lost some close games, we’ve kind of gotten separated, but both of us are trying to get after it and take that next step for this year, and try to get it going in the right direction that way,” Bennett said.

“So, it’s, there’s a lot of intensity, but respect, it’s not a hatred. I don’t hate Coach Young, and I hope he doesn’t hate me. But does he want to beat us? Do we want to beat them? Absolutely. Do our guys want to play? Yes,” Bennett said.