UVA Basketball: Sanchez, ‘Hoos playing for first-round ACC Tournament bye

Ron Sanchez isn’t going to get a six-year deal paying him millions to be the UVA Basketball coach, but he’s got a chance to finish out his one-and-done season as a Power 6 coach above .500.

“If we go, starting, you know, from that Miami game, you know, we got in trouble, we were in a bad position in the standings, didn’t know if we were going to make the conference tournament, you know. To go from that to winning at Tech, winning at Pitt, winning at Wake, kind of finding a way for us to put ourselves in a good position,” Sanchez said after Virginia’s 60-57 win over Florida State on Tuesday.

---

ICYMI

• Ron Sanchez signs off with a W in his apparent UVA Basketball home finale

---

Sanchez followed Tony Bennett from Washington State to UVA in 2009, then left for five years to take over as the head coach at Charlotte, returned to Bennett’s side in the summer of 2023.

He was elevated to the role of interim head coach in October when Bennett stepped down on the eve of the season.

Back-to-back blowout losses to Tennessee and St. John’s in November foretold the struggles that were to come.

The nadir came on Jan. 18, an 81-67 loss to Louisville, the fifth L in a row dropping Virginia to 8-10 overall, 1-6 in the ACC, and on the verge, it seemed at the time, of not even making the ACC Tournament – with the conference expanded to 18 schools, only 15 are getting invites to Charlotte next week.

The Cavaliers (15-15, 8-11 ACC) have won five of their last eight to get back to .500, and with a win at Syracuse (12-18, 6-13 ACC) on Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, ACCN), they would get a bye to the second round of the ACC Tournament, and a spot in the 8-9 game against either Georgia Tech (16-14, 10-9 ACC) or Stanford (19-11, 11-8 ACC) at noon on Wednesday.

It’s not going to be enough to give Sanchez, 87-93 in six seasons as a D1 head coach, the job on a permanent basis, but, credit to the coach, his staff and his kids, they’ve found a way to make something of what could have been a lost season.

“The group has shown grit, and that’s the one thing. They didn’t fracture down the stretch,” Sanchez said. “They could have, you know. This is what growth looks like, if you really want to know, you know. This is what trust looks like. This is, you know, what learning from your previous experiences looks like. So, you know, I’m proud of the guys for battling through.”