By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — He wasn’t sure what answer he’d receive, but Tony Bennett figured he had nothing to lose, and he knew he’d kick himself if he didn’t at least try. And so he called Ron Sanchez to see if his former assistant would be interested in rejoining the University of Virginia men’s basketball staff.
“I said, ‘Ron, I know it’s late. You’ve been putting your team together, and I’ve been putting mine, but if it’s something you want to consider, let’s talk about it,’ ” Bennett recalled. “And he said, ‘Well, let’s talk about it.’ ”
Bennett and Sanchez first worked together at Washington State, where Bennett spent three seasons as head coach (2006-07 to 2008-09), and they formed a strong friendship in Pullman. When Bennett left Wazzu to become Virginia’s head coach in the spring of 2009, Sanchez followed him to Charlottesville. He worked for nine seasons on Bennett’s staff—the final three as associate head coach—before departing in March 2018 to become head coach at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Five years later, he’s back at John Paul Jones Arena, filling the vacancy created when Kyle Getter left in April to join his close friend Micah Shrewsberry’s staff at Notre Dame. Sanchez’s title is associate head coach, as is Jason Williford’s. Williford, who joined Bennett’s staff as an assistant in the spring of 2009, was promoted to that position when Sanchez left for Charlotte. The Wahoos’ third assistant coach, Orlando Vandross, is heading into his sixth season on Bennett’s staff.
Sanchez has longstanding ties to other members of Bennett’s staff, including Ronnie Wideman, Brad Soderberg, Johnny Carpenter, Mike Curtis, Ethan Saliba, Larry Mangino and Isaiah Wilkins, and that’s made for a seamless return to JPJ. The Cavaliers started summer practice this week.
“It’s funny, because I went back to my first staff meeting, and it was like walking back on your team,” Sanchez said. “It was very comfortable. It didn’t feel like a first meeting, it just felt like us meeting again, and it was really refreshing to get that feeling when I was in that space.”
With Sanchez back, there’s “such continuity,” Bennett said. “He’s always been part of this thing.”
At Charlotte, Sanchez took over a team that had finished 6-23 overall in 2017-18. The 49ers finished with a winning record three times during his tenure, including a 22-14 mark in 2022-23, when they captured the College Basketball Invitational title in Daytona Beach, Fla.
“I do feel that I left the woodpile a lot higher than I found it, absolutely,” Sanchez said. “I do feel that there was a foundation built that can be sustained. It was a struggling program when we arrived, and right now it is a program that won its last game, and I really do feel a tremendous sense of satisfaction in my time there through some very difficult times. The part that makes it even more satisfying is that we accomplished some things through probably the most difficult time in college athletics with COVID-19 and all the changes that have come and impacted the game.”
When the 2022-23 season ended, the immediate priority for both Bennett and Sanchez was filling holes in their respective rosters. From the team that earned a share of the ACC regular-season title, Virginia lost Kihei Clark, Jayden Gardner, Armaan Franklin, Kadin Shedrick, Francisco Caffaro, Ben Vander Plas and Isaac Traudt.
“We wanted to go attack that, and that takes time,” said Bennett, who guided UVA to the NCAA title in 2018-19.
Once the Cavaliers replenished their roster for 2023-24—six new scholarship players have joined the program, including transfers Jordan Minor (Merrimack), Andrew Rohde (St. Thomas) and Jake Groves (Oklahoma)—Bennett turned his attention to rounding out his staff.
“Ron was always at the top of my list, but I thought it was probably a long shot,” Bennett said. “I had some really solid guys I was thinking about, but I kept saying, ‘Look, if I had my dream hire, would Ron consider leaving a head-coaching job?’ ”
Bennett asked Williford and Vandross for their input, and “they both said, ‘The home-run hire would be if Ron would ever want to come back.’ ”
Rarely do coaches willingly give up head jobs to become assistants, but it’s not unprecedented. Ritchie McKay did so in the spring of 2009, leaving Liberty University, where he was in charge of the program, to become Bennett’s associate head coach at UVA.
“That played a role in my decision-making,” Sanchez said, “seeing the impact that Ritchie had on the program as a former head coach, coming in and really just deciding to serve Tony the best way that he could in that transition.
“If I can have any similar impact to what Ritchie had on the program then, then this will really be worth it, because Ritchie was such a catalyst in what we started building here.”
The opportunity to be “reunited with Wahoo Nation” also appealed to him, Sanchez said. “This is such a special place. It was really hard to say no to being back with Tony and [the staff].”
After the 2014-15 season, McKay returned to Liberty for a second stint as head coach, and he’s had consistent success there. He and Sanchez spoke several times this spring before Sanchez accepted Bennett’s job offer.
“I think some people will wrongly look at it as running from something,” McKay said. “I think he saw an opportunity and a small window to rejoin Tony and try and maybe help Coach win another national championship. It’s hard to do that, and Ron was on the ground floor of the erecting of the program in its pursuit of its first championship.”
McKay has also been head coach at New Mexico, Oregon State, Colorado State and Portland State. Another member of Bennett’s staff, director of scouting Brad Soderberg, is a former head coach at five schools: Loras College, South Dakota State, Wisconsin, Saint Louis and Lindenwood University.