One shining moment villanova2/12/2024 For all the regular-season accolades that the Cavaliers have racked up under Bennett, his team has a history of bowing out early in the NCAA tournament. So why does it feel like he still has so much left to prove? The answer to that question is simultaneously obvious and derived from the widespread belief that college basketball success can be achieved during only one month of the calendar year. How Tony Bennett Turned Virginia Into College Basketball’s Spurs NCAA Tournament Bracket Breakdown: The Good, Bad, and Matchups That Must Happen No matter what else happens from here, the vision Bennett shared at his introductory press conference in 2009- when he said, “It’s not about building a great team, but about building a program that lasts”-has been realized. The AP poll, the RPI, KenPom, and now the NCAA tournament selection committee have all reached the same conclusion: The best team in college basketball during the 2017-18 season was Bennett’s. 1 overall seed for the first time in school history. And on Sunday, he earned the crown jewel on his coaching résumé, as the 2018 NCAA tournament bracket was revealed and Virginia (31-2) was named the no. Plenty of idiot sportswriters will argue that Bennett still lacks the “wow” factor, but his results speak for themselves. (He also took home a USBWA award at Washington State in 2007.) He’s even built a program deemed worthy of a Jordan Conn feature. He’s been named ACC coach of the year three times and captured two USBWA national coach of the year awards. He’s won three of the past five ACC regular-season titles and two of the past five conference tournaments. The coach has lifted a formerly dormant Virginia program to heights it hasn’t experienced in more than three decades. Nine years later, I’m pretty sure Virginia fans wouldn’t hesitate to sign a petition calling for the removal of the Thomas Jefferson statue on campus so that a Bennett statue 10 times its size could be erected in its place. Not long after that, the first quote in the Times-Dispatch article comes from an unnamed Virginia fan, who said that Bennett “might turn out to be a great coach, but he is hardly the home run that we were looking for. I didn’t make it past the first sentence:ĬHARLOTTESVILLE - The University of Virginia has its next men’s basketball coach, and he’s not Minnesota’s Tubby Smith or Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel or Texas’ Rick Barnes or LSU’s Trent Johnson. Just read the Richmond Times-Dispatch article announcing Bennett’s move to UVA and see how far you can get before laughing. It makes sense, then, why his hiring left many Virginia fans underwhelmed. Bennett was 39 years old at the time and had been a Division I head coach for only three seasons, compiling a nice but unspectacular 69-33 record at Washington State. The University of Virginia hired Tony Bennett to be its head basketball coach on March 30, 2009.
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