Interim UVA Basketball coach Ron Sanchez has emerged as one of the top two candidates for the full-time job.
This bit of intel trickled down to me this week in the aftermath of Virginia’s 80-62 loss to #3 Duke on Monday in JPJ, which hosted several members of the committee working with the athletics department to identify and vet possible candidates for the position that came open when Tony Bennett stepped down in October.
Sanchez, from what I’m being told, has worked himself into contention in the job search with his team’s recent play, with a stretch of five wins in the last eight games, and noticeable development of the young roster, with a rotation that would only lose one guy, Taine Murray, to graduation/end of eligibility.
The top outside target, I’m told, is Marquette coach Shaka Smart, who led VCU to the 2011 Final Four, has a win in JPJ – his 2013-2014 VCU team beat a UVA team that went on to win the ACC regular-season title, the ACC Tournament and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen.
Smart, just 47, already has 16 years as a D1 head coach under his belt, at VCU, Texas and now Marquette, where his teams put up 29-7 and 27-10 records in the past two seasons, and is sitting, at the moment, at 20-6 and #16 in the AP Top 25.
Smart has a 367-178 career won-loss record, at this writing.
Sanchez’s coaching resume is noticeably lighter: he was the head coach at Charlotte for five years, from 2018-2023, with a 72-78 record, his best season being his final one year, in which his team finished 22-14, and won the 2023 College Basketball Invitational postseason tournament.
Around that stint, Sanchez served as an assistant at Washington State, first under Dick Bennett, Tony Bennett’s father, then under Tony Bennett, from 2003-2009, before following Tony Bennett to Virginia, and working on the staff at UVA from 2009-2018.
Sanchez returned to work under Bennett in the summer of 2023 before being elevated to the interim head coach position upon Bennett’s surprise retirement.
Sanchez is under contract as an assistant coach with the UVA Basketball program through April 30, 2027.
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Chris Graham
