This week, a boyish 40-year-old who shares a name with an iconic crooner takes the floor at the John Paul Jones Arena for his first basketball game as Virginia’s eleventh head coach when UVA battles Longwood University. Does Tony Bennett really know what he’s getting himself into?
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New basketball head coach Tony Bennett is ready to show off his team. At Washington State, Bennett transformed the team to a NCAA contender. At UVA, his expectations are low. One piece of advice: Don’t win too much too early. Listen to Trent Thurston’s interview with Tony Bennett on the C-VILLE HooYa! Blog. |
For a basketball coach, trying to win at UVA is kind of like trying to win the hand of Atlanta. Sure, you could vanquish the Dukes and UNCs of the world to win lifelong adoration—but if you don’t, you get your career killed.
Just take a look at what Virginia did to her latest suitors. Pete Gillen, that spunky, time-out loving leprechaun of a coach, came to UVA after years of success at Xavier and Providence. He now covers low-profile games as a college basketball analyst. After winning at DePaul, Dave Leitao brought Virginia his fiery courtside presence and defensive focus. Even Google doesn’t know what he’s up to these days.
Bennett has a few things going his way. At his last gig, Bennett immediately transformed Washington State from Pac-10 bottom feeder to NCAA tourney contender, going 69-33 in three years as head coach. At Virginia, he inherits one of the conference’s best sophomores, Sylven Landesberg, the 6’6" guard/forward/whatever-he-needs-to-be, who last year averaged 17 points per game and was ACC rookie of the year. Bennett also kept two highly touted Leitao recruits, forward Tristan Spurlock and guard Jontel Evans. And Bennett’s scheme—a tortoise-paced strategy focused on rugged defense and patient offense that tends to produce final scores in the 50s—is different enough that it could throw off more talented teams and produce some surprise wins.
Perhaps Bennett’s biggest asset is low expectations. The annual media poll picks UVA to finish 11th of 12th in the conference. Close losses to Duke or UNC will be treated as victories, and no one will get upset if the NCAA tournament doesn’t come calling in March.
Yet there’s also a lesson from Bennett’s fallen forebears: Don’t turn things around too quickly. It’s not that you have to win a lot at UVA—only Terry Holland, supercharged by four years of Ralph Sampson, had a winning record in ACC play, a mortal 52 percent. Gillen and Leitao’s overall ACC winning percentages made them respectively the third and fourth best coaches in UVA’s history. They were doomed not by the tally but the timing of their losses. They made the mistake of winning early—both had winning ACC records in their second year—and the bar was never lowered. Holland waited until his fifth season to win more ACC games than he lost.
So good luck, Tony. Beat Longwood. But if you plan on sticking around for a while, save “Rags to Riches” for another year.
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