Historic Loss Fuels Bennett and Co.
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By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTE, N.C. – This is a city in which Tony Bennett has experienced the full range of emotions, from immeasurable joy – he met his wife, Laurel, here – to profound dejection.
“I have so many different memories of Charlotte,” said Bennett, who’s heading into his 10thseason as head men’s basketball coach at the University of Virginia.
Bennett, a former guard for the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, was speaking Wednesday afternoon at ACC Operational Basketball, the league’s annual preseason media day. This year’s event was held at the Spectrum Center, home of the Hornets and, more relevant to Bennett, the site of his team’s 2017-18 finale.
It was a game that rocked the college hoops world.
After sweeping the ACC’s regular-season and tournament titles and posting a school-record 31 victories, UVA entered the NCAA tourney as the No. 1 overall seed. The Cavaliers aimed to make history by winning the first NCAA title in program history.
Instead, Virginia became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed, falling to UMBC in a first-round game at the Spectrum Center.
“Just the fact that it happened, it’s part of our story,” Bennett said. “You have to embrace it. That’s not going to change.”
Representing UVA at ACC Operation Basketball were Bennett, fifth-year senior center Jack Salt and junior guard Kyle Guy. They stayed Tuesday night at same hotel that hosted the Cavaliers during their brief stay in the NCAAs last season.
Bennett knew questions about the loss to UMBC were coming Wednesday. And so, in his session with media members on one side of the Spectrum Center court, Bennett raised the topic himself.
“I think it’s a mistake if you just say, ‘Well, it happened, it was a fluke,’ ” he said, “and sweep it under the rug and not deal with it.”
He quoted a line from a TED talk delivered in Charlottesville, where the speaker “talked about dealing with adversity,” Bennett said. “I’ve shared it a lot of times to our players, and the idea is, if you learn to use it right, it can buy you a ticket to a place you wouldn’t have gone any other way. And quite honestly, that’s how we are choosing to use last year.”
The Wahoos have discussed the defeat – and their resolve to learn from the experience — during team meetings at John Paul Jones Arena.
“We’ve owned that and will continue to own it,” said Bennett, who received numerous national-coach-of-the-year awards last season.
“I know that people will always bring it up, wherever we go. I know that’s part of it. But that’s OK. It really is. I still love the game. I still have joy. I still can’t wait to coach the guys, and that’s a great truth. That almost frees you up when something happened that you wish wouldn’t have happened, and you’re still OK. Not that it was easy, but it frees you up to go after it in a better way, and I think our guys understand that. It stung, but that’s OK, and because of it I think we’ll be better in the long run. I hope that means basketball-wise, of course, but hopefully other things [as well].”
After they arrived in Charlotte — the site of the next ACC tournament — Bennett met with Salt and Guy at their hotel.
Bennett quoted a famous line to the players, telling them “courage is not the absence of fear, it’s moving forward in the face of fear,” Guy said, “and I think that’s something that I’m going to hold onto for the rest of my life. I think one of the greatest things, and why I wanted to be here so bad, is because it was in the same arena [as the UMBC game]. I think this is the best way for me to face my demons.”
A bad loss feels much different from a big win, Salt said, but “I think ultimately Coach instills in us the attitude to get better. That always stays the same, no matter the result of the game. We’re always going to try to work hard the next game, win or loss.
“At the end of last season, we had a historic loss. So that was hard. [UMBC] came in and outplayed us, but this offseason the guys have been working hard, Coach has been working us hard at practice, so we’re excited for the upcoming season.”
Neither Guy nor Salt looked uncomfortable when asked about the loss to the Retrievers. They followed the lead of their head coach.
“I made my peace with it. I can’t change what happened,” Bennett said. But the loss “kind of sparked something in me,” he said.
“I desperately want Virginia and this team that I coach to have a chance to hopefully one day play for a national championship, win a national championship, go to a Final Four,” Bennett said. “I want to really go at this in the right way. [The setback] has inspired me in a way that maybe a loss like that only can. But it did something else that I think is as important or more important: It made me realize if that doesn’t happen, I’m still OK.”
Bennett added: “It was unbelievable to win like we won, and it was joyful. But it wasn’t the end-all, be-all. And it was really painful to lose like we did – really painful, humbling – but it wasn’t the end-all, be-all.”
Gone from last season are program mainstays Isaiah Wilkins and Devon Hall – who established themselves as two of the ACC’s top players – as well as reserve guard Nigel Johnson and longtime assistant Ron Sanchez, now the head coach of the Charlotte 49ers.
Still, Virginia’s roster includes many proven names. Among the Cavaliers’ veterans are Guy, Salt, junior guard Ty Jerome, redshirt junior forward Mamadi Diakite and redshirt sophomore forward De’Andre Hunter, the ACC’s Sixth Man of the Year in 2017-18. Adding depth are such players are 6-8 junior Braxton Key, 7-1 redshirt sophomore Jay Huff, 6-4 sophomore Marco Anthony, 5-9 freshman Kihei Clark and 6-7 freshman Kody Stattmann.
The NCAA this week granted immediate eligibility to Key, who transferred from Alabama to UVA after the 2017-18 academic year. In his two seasons with the Crimson Tide, he started 47 games for head coach Avery Johnson.
“He gives us some quality and versatility,” Bennett said. “Braxton is a player that can be a 3 or a 4” – small forward or power forward – “and his experience, having played two years for Avery at Alabama, playing in big games in an NCAA tournament, all those experiences are very valuable. Because we have guys that have some experience, but probably our depth is unproven.
“He’ll continue to evolve and get a feel for his teammates, but we’re glad he’s here, and it’s good for us for him to receive the waiver.”
The Cavaliers’ trademark Pack Line defense rarely has been better than it was last season. Virginia led the nation in scoring defense.
So far this preseason, Bennett said, his team has not met the standard set in 2017-18 at that end of the court, “and that’s going to be the challenge. You understand the value and the leadership of what Isaiah Wilkins brought. He’s one of the best team defenders. You talk about a guy that covered for everyone. And then when you take that out, and then Devon Hall, who understood the Pack at a high level, those pieces are gone.
“We definitely have some core guys back, but the rest of the depth is either fairly new or young. I think those things are showing up at times. It’s not a matter of working at it and [putting forth] effort, but it’s certainly a challenge that you’re always trying to establish. And it’s hard. Playing good defense is hard, and it’s never a given, and of course we’ll work at it.”
In The Associated Press’ preseason poll, released Monday, UVA is ranked No. 5. Also in the top 25 are six other ACC teams: Duke at No. 4, North Carolina at No. 8, Virginia Tech at No. 15, Syracuse at No. 16, Florida State at No. 17, and Clemson at No. 22.
“On paper, at the start of the year, it looks like an incredibly deep [league],” Bennett said.
He doesn’t put much stock, though, in the polls. The Cavaliers saw what happened in 2017-18, when they began the regular season unranked and went into the NCAA tournament ranked No. 1.
Bennett laughed when recounting a comment by Salt.
“Jack said, ‘We weren’t ranked early in the season, and we ended up being number one. We proved ’em wrong. And we were the number one seed, and we proved ’em wrong again,’ ” Bennett told reporters.
Bennett mentioned a letter written by legendary basketball coach Clair Bee to Bob Knight after the 1974-75 season. Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers finished 31-1 that year after losing to Kentucky in the NCAA tournament’s Elite Eight. (Indiana went unbeaten and won the NCAA title in 1975-76.)
“Someone sent [a copy of the letter] to me,” Bennett said. “It was the idea of being strengthened by the very blow that cut you down, but the premise of it was: We’re going to run to the starting line.
“This is a new team this year. This is a different team. So many people want to say, ‘Well, OK, well, you’ve got to get back, you’ve got to vindicate yourself or validate that [after] what happened [against UMBC].’
“No. This is about us running to the starting line of the season and taking it absolutely as far as we can possibly go, and it’s about growing from last year’s unbelievable success and growing from last year’s very humbling loss, and using it to help us respond and be better.”
This team “doesn’t have Isaiah, it doesn’t have Devon, it doesn’t have Ron Sanchez,” Bennett said. “But will we embrace who we are and run to the startling line. And that’s all that’s guaranteed. We could be terrific this year. We might not be terrific, but it’s all about running to the starting line.”