The hot taeks in my email inbox and texts were flying after Virginia’s ugly loss to a not good Notre Dame team on Saturday.
One taek: “Tony’s offense is trash.”
A second: “Good to see FSU get knocked off by Lipscomb. It will make a 20-point loss to them look even better.”
Harsh, but both pale to what one of my sportswriter friends insisted in an endless series of texts in the immediate aftermath of the ugly loss to me to be true, then backed down from writing about, after I challenged him to put his name to it in print.
I loathe people being shrinking violets when it comes to their hot taeks, so, here it is, in all its glory, and that’s my byline up there, because, whatever – if you’ve got something to say, say it.
The guy swears that the issue with Virginia hoops right now is that Tony Bennett brought Ron Sanchez back to his staff because Bennett is planning to step down at the end of the season, and that the rest of the staff is walking on eggshells wondering what their future is going to be when that happens.
Why else, the sportswriter friend noted, would Sanchez have given up a million dollars a year and a head-coaching job at Charlotte to come back to Virginia to be an assistant?
A lot to unpack here.
One, Sanchez wasn’t making a mill a year at Charlotte; more like $650,000, which isn’t insignificant, but likely less than what he’s making now than he’s back on Tony’s staff at UVA.
Caveat: I can’t verify this without doing a public-records request, which takes time to process, but probably should be done, just to have everything on the record.
Sports media relations folks reading this: take note, it’s coming.
Two, now, to be clear, I don’t doubt that Sanchez likely gave up a head-coaching job to return as an assistant on Bennett’s staff because he might have been thinking when he did so that, one day, if I go back, the UVA job could be mine.
Sanchez was Bennett’s right-hand man dating back to their days at Washington State, made the trip with him to Charlottesville when Bennett was kicking the tires on the UVA job, was there at his side as the program started to take off.
If Bennett gets a say in who succeeds him, whenever that might be, Sanchez would have to be at the top of the list, a smidge ahead of Jason Williford, who was part of the Day 1 staff and has been around for the duration.
I always viewed Sanchez’s move to Charlotte as him going out, spreading his wings, getting a feel for what it takes to run a program, and he did well decently there in his five-year tenure, taking a program that had floundered under former Georgia Tech point guard Mark Price, who was 33-59 in three seasons, including 6-23 in 2017-2018, to a respectable 72-78 mark, including a 22-14 finish in 2022-2023.
OK, so, one day in the future, whenever it is that Bennett steps down, I see Sanchez being the handpicked guy to get the job, and I assume whoever is in charge of the athletics department when that happens at the least gives Bennett the chance to pick his successor – a la Dean Smith, Roy Williams, Coach K, Jim Boeheim.
I don’t know that I buy into the idea that this day is coming in a couple of months.
This is point #3 in this column.
The sportswriter friend cited a contact in the college coaching community with UVA ties as the source of the line of thinking that Bennett is on his way out the door.
The comment to that effect, I’m noting here, came from the coaching contact after the Notre Dame loss.
If it comes in the summer, in October, during the exam break, anytime other than right after a bad loss, there’s some weight to it.
That it came minutes after the ugly loss, it’s frustration looking for relief.
And then, to the observation about the rest of the staff being on eggshells because Sanchez, if he were in line to get the job in a couple of months, would want to clean house, that one itself makes absolutely no sense.
OK, so, I’m not buying the Bennett is stepping down after the season is over line, but if that was coming, and he would want Ron Sanchez to be the big whistle, he’d want Sanchez there because of the value of continuity, which has been a hallmark of Tony’s tenure at UVA.
Look at his staff now: it’s guys who have been with him forever.
The collected institutional knowledge is what has made the Bennett era what it has been.
Meaning, if Tony Bennett has set a plan in motion to step down at the end of the 2023-2024 season, and have Ron Sanchez on site to be the coach-in-waiting, the other assistants would be a necessary and important part of the package.
This is going to happen at some point; Tony Bennett isn’t a coaching lifer.
He’s not going to be 75 years old working the transfer portal, NIL or whatever else there is to work in college basketball in 20 years.
And that’s assuming college basketball, and the rest of college athletics, looks in 20 years anything like it does now; and assuming we even have college sports in 20 years, given the current trends.
Yes, there is Virginia Basketball after Tony Bennett; but it ain’t going to be anytime soon.
That’s my byline up there.
The lesson for aspiring sportswriters: don’t be afraid to be wrong.
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Chris Graham
