I hate that I feel the need to start this story about Ron Sanchez being formally rolled out as the interim head coach at UVA Basketball by addressing an interwebs rumor, but this is the world we live in.
A guy who advertises himself as a New England Patriots beat writer floated a rumor on social media last night that the University of Virginia had offered Ed Cooley, the second-year coach at Georgetown, a six-year contract, and that the two sides were, at this point, just working out the final details.
Video: Ron Sanchez introduced as UVA Basketball coach
Odd thing to that was, UVA Athletics had reached out to the local media on Monday to invite us to a virtual presser with Sanchez as part of the rollout of Tony Bennett’s long-time top assistant as the interim head coach.
Then, at the beginning of today’s Zoom call, Erich Bacher, the head of the media-relations office for UVA Athletics, noted that we’d get more time with Sanchez next week at the team’s annual media day.
So, no, nothing was said formally about this Ed Cooley rumor, and none of the reporters on the Zoom asked, because we didn’t need to, but there you go.
Sanchez is the guy for the upcoming season, and we should all continue to operate under the assumption that he’ll be among the candidates for the full-time job once Athletics Director Carla Williams, whose contract is up next May, incidentally, begins her national search.
Alrighty, then, with that out of the way, Sanchez is the guy, and he took questions from the local media on the status of the program, what changes might be in store, and what he’s doing to step into the big whistle job.
On that interim tag
“It doesn’t play a role in this at all,” Sanchez said, of the interim tag. “You know, my role here as an assistant coach was to be, you know, a person that showed up every day to impact the program and to help this program be successful. You know, it wasn’t well, you know, hopefully I can have a different, you know, employment opportunity right now. You know, the title, it doesn’t, it doesn’t, doesn’t mean anything. You know, I’m here to serve this institution for however long it is.”
Realistically, the job is his if Virginia meets the preseason expectations – the ACC media picked the Cavaliers to finish fifth in the 18-team conference in the preseason.
That would portend 23-25 wins and a solid NCAA Tournament resume heading into Selection Sunday.
The job only opens up if this season comes up short of reaching the expectations.
I’m going to wonder aloud here how Williams’s contract status – she is under contract through May 31, 2025 – will play a role in the ultimate decision.
Just planting a seed, is what I’m doing on that.
“Tony said in his press conference, and I quote, this commission that we’ve always had, is about things being on loan,” Sanchez said. “You know, this was on loan to Tony for 15 years. You know, right now, it’s on loan to me, for however long this institution chooses, and every day, just going to give my best, you know, whether, you know, right now, if there was a 10-year contract that I’ve just signed, I will give the same effort, you know, that I will give this institution, this program right now. I’m not sure that that plays any role in how I feel or how I approach this, you know, on a daily basis. This institution, Carla, President Ryan, Tony’s legacy, deserves, you know, that level of respect and commitment to excellence.”
How his tenure at Charlotte helped prepare him
Ron Sanchez had worked with Tony Bennett since the two served together as assistants under Dick Bennett, Tony’s father, at Washington State.
The two left there to come east for the job at Virginia in 2009, and Sanchez was Bennett’s right-hand man until he left to take the head coach job at Charlotte in 2018.
He got that program back on track, winning 22 games in his final season there, in 2022-2023, before returning to Bennett’s staff at Virginia in the summer of 2023.
“I see all of it. It’s one thing to be an assistant. It’s another to become a head coach and have to lead a program,” Sanchez said, explaining what he learned from being a head guy for five years. “I’m using those experiences right now, if I’m being, you know, probably, thinking through your question, having to, you know, galvanize energy every day, having to take young men that, you know, are in a transition space, and try to, you know, unite them to pursue a specific goal, you know, and then obviously, the basketball stuff.
“When you take over a program that, you know, was not performing well, and, you know, the expectations were in one place, and you come in, and you want to create something special, you know, the beauty about that is, that all those things already happened here. So, for me, it’s, you know, I see, every single year that I was at Charlotte, I learned something new that I will most certainly use during my time here,” Sanchez said.
Style of play
Bennett, after last season’s NCAA Tournament flameout, acknowledged publicly that he knew he needed to make some tweaks to his approach, particularly on offense, to catch up to what is going on in the game of college basketball.
“We’ll do some things that were that are going to be a little different, but not because I’m here,” Sanchez said. “Those were the things that Tony and I, actually, and the staff, discussed this summer. There were plans to try to do things a little differently. You know, Coach Williford, Coach Soderberg, you know, Coach Guy, Coach Wilkins, you know, we were all involved in many conversations about trying to do things a little different. But it’s not just because of this change. It was something that was coming regardless.”
“The main catalyst was just trying to evolve,” Sanchez said, answering a follow-up on that topic. “I think the game has changed so much over the last, you know, decade, and we were just trying to find a way to keep up with those changes, and, you know, identifying guys that can open up the floor a little bit for us, guys that could, you know, shoot the ball from the perimeter, guys with some size and some length. And it was for practical reasons. It wasn’t just to, oh, this helps us in recruiting, you know, we felt that this would help us compete at a higher level, and that was the main reason behind making a change.”
Podcast: Ron Sanchez is introduced as new UVA hoops coach
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