Sitting in an almost empty press section Sunday afternoon during the UVA Basketball team’s sleepy 63-58 win over American U., I wondered: would Virginia have won any more games with Tony Bennett as head coach than with interim coach Ron Sanchez?
So, here’s where 2024 currently stands: UVA is 0-1 in ACC play and 7-5 overall.
Four of UVA’s losses have come at the hands of ranked teams, and there was a loss at 9-2 SMU in front of what may have been the most hostile road environment of the season, including Florida.
Virginia also has a neutral-site win over Villanova.
However, at 7-5 and with a weak ACC schedule that will provide minimal resume-building opportunities, Sanchez faces the monumental task of getting his team into the NCAA Tournament.
Now, getting back to the question, would Bennett have had Virginia at a better mark at this point in the season had he not quit, err, retired?
My initial reaction is to say, absolutely yes.
That is until I think back on Bennett’s last season with UVA.
The 2023-2024 Cavaliers had two NBA guys in Reece Beekman and Ryan Dunn.
Beekman was an All-ACC point guard, and Dunn was possibly the nation’s most talented defensive player.
Yet, Virginia lost to unranked Wisconsin by 24 points, to unranked Virginia Tech by 24, to a terrible Notre Dame team by 22, and that unspeakable debacle in the NCAA play-in game loss to Colorado State by 25.
And there are more, but you get my point.
So, if we think that Bennett would have this team firing on all cylinders in late December, then last season’s results provide plenty of evidence to the contrary.
So, with Bennett on the sideline, the Cavaliers would have found a way to beat Memphis in JPJ, but the other four losses are still losses regardless of the coach.
This isn’t an NCAA Tourney team, even at 8-4 instead of 7-5.
This roster simply doesn’t have the pieces to be a contender in a very weak ACC, and if it’s not a contender, it won’t get an at-large tourney bid.
To be honest, we didn’t deserve a play-in opportunity last season, and the embarrassing loss to Colorado State proved that.
The portal transfer hasn’t paid dividends for Virginia this season, and with Sanchez reportedly doing the grunt work in bringing the portal players to Virginia, he has to own that.
The misconception that Bennett exceeded his talent level has been debunked. Virginia had plenty of stars under Bennett, many of whom are in the NBA this season.
Maybe Bennett sensed that this year’s roster wasn’t deep or athletic enough to execute the intricate Pack Line defense, or that, with almost complete roster turnover, cohesiveness would be impossible to establish.
We will never know.
I believe this: regardless of who’s roaming the sidelines this season for Virginia, it makes little difference.
Great players make great coaches, and good players make good coaches.
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