Former UVA Basketball assistant and interim head coach Ron Sanchez is back in the coaching business, on the staff at Baylor with Scott Drew.
Of note here: Drew was on the very early list of top targets in the search at Virginia this past fall and winter.
“Ron is a tremendous fit for our program, and we are excited to welcome him to Waco,” Drew said in a press release issued by Baylor Athletics on Friday. “He has built and coached champions throughout his career in a variety of roles, doing it alongside legendary names like Dick and Tony Bennett. Spending nearly three decades pouring into athletes and helping them reach their dreams, Ron will be a great steward of our culture of joy.”
ICYMI
Baylor is coming off a so-so 20-15 season, though that included an NCAA Tournament appearance, and a win as a nine seed, and a loss to Duke in the second round.
Drew’s last four teams have been bounced in the second round, after Baylor’s run to the national title in 2021, the first full season after the COVID disruption ended the 2019-2020 season without an NCAA Tournament, leaving Virginia, the 2019 champ, as the de facto defending champ for two years.
Sanchez was 15-17 in his year as the interim head coach at UVA, ascending to the job after Tony Bennett stepped down on the eve of the 2024-2025 season.
Sanchez had worked alongside Bennett dating back to their days at Washington State on the staff of Dick Bennett, aside from leaving for a five-year stint as the head coach at Charlotte, from 2018-2023.
He returned to Charlottesville for the 2023-2024 season before being named the interim head coach in October 2024.
We’re up to four former Bennett staffers who have now landed new gigs following the move by UVA Athletics to make a clean break from the TB era.
The other top assistant from the Bennett years, Jason Williford, is at Georgetown, Isaiah Wilkins is at Cal, and Kyle Guy is at Nevada.
I haven’t heard anything about what is next for Brad Soderberg or Chase Coleman.
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Chris Graham
