The Virginia Basketball coaching search ended yesterday as the Hoos announced that Tony Bennett would head up the Cavaliers next season. Besides being an excellent singer Bennett brings quite a coaching pedigree to Charlottesville. Bennett is the son of former Wisconsin and Washington State head coach Dick Bennett and served under him while at both schools. Bennett was also an All-American point guard at Wisconsin-Green Bay and went on to play 3 seasons in the NBA before a broken foot ended his career. Bennett took over the Washington State Cougars in 2006 and led them to their first NCAA tournament bid since 1994. In 3 seasons as head coach Bennett has led Washington State to a record of 69-33 and made the NCAA tournament 2 of the last 3 seasons. Bennett was named AP coach of the in 2007, in which he led the Cougars to the Sweet 16.
Bennett’s personality will be a welcome change from Coach Leitao. While at Washington State Bennett was known for being a player’s coach, and fantastic with the players and media. I wouldn’t look for any profanity laced tirades this season out of him, and I would look for him to attempt to reestablish the presence the basketball team has in the community.
The one major drawback to Bennett seems to be recruiting. In his 3 classes he has only managed to recruit one five-star rated player to Washington State. Hopefully this is just because it is difficult to recruit players to Pullman, Washington, which admittedly I could not find on a map. The first few months will be interesting to see what he can do recruiting wise with the fantastic new facilities we have here in Charlottesville. His first big test is Tristan Spurlock, the swing man from Springfield, VA who is the prize of this year’s class. A report from my dynamics class this morning said that Spurlock’s AIM away message just said, “wow…” in response to the announcement.
The hiring does bring about one glaring question, and that is is this really Bennett’s dream job. There are many signs that point to no and that he would actually much rather coach in the Big Ten. First obviously are his roots in Wisconsin. Other than his brief tenure as a member of the Charlotte Hornets Bennett does not seem to have any ties or history in this area. Second is his playing style. If anyone watched Washington State play you see that they play a very slow, half-court, defensive style of basketball. This style is the signature of the Big Ten and traditionally does not fare very well against the faster, more athletic teams of the ACC, just look at the ACC-Big Ten challenge. Thirdly is Bennett’s track record. He was rumored to be the front runner for almost every job the last two seasons. This may be another consequence of being at Washington State but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear his name mentioned if there’s an opening in the Big Ten soon.
This leads me to the manner in which the athletic department handled this search and the decision they made. While I have no problem with Tony Bennett as a coach I will admit something about it just doesn’t feel right. I can’t get over the fact that he seems to want and be perfect for a job in the big ten. He also is another coach that came completely out of the blue, just as Leitao did 4 years ago. When I heard the news on the bus I remember thinking that I would never have guessed that in a million years. Hearing names like Tubby Smith, Jeff Capel, and Rick Barnes for the last few days led me to believe that UVA was going to make a huge splash with this hire, which it doesn’t appear to have done. But that’s really not what irks me about this. What gets me is the fact that this appears to be a stop for Bennett. That was the first thing I thought when I started doing research for this article. If I could figure that out in 15 minutes of research then the athletic department had to have seen this, and if they knew that this was probably only a stop for Bennett on the road to where he really wanted to be then they have slapped all of us in the face and told us that the basketball team’s success is not important, that as fans we should expect mediocrity and to be a stepping stone program, which kills me as a Virginia fan. If the slogan of the athletic department, “Uncompromised Excellence” was reflected in this coaching hire, then they would be announcing Jeff Capel or Tubby Smith today as the head coach. Someone who we knew had ties to the region and was committed to building this team into a powerhouse because it was their lifelong goal to do so. Nothing about Tony Bennett says ACC, or UVA, or even east of the Mississippi river and his hiring is an indictment of the athletic department and will, barring tremendous success and me being completely wrong, probably spell the demise of Craig Littlepage and the rest of the athletic department.
As a Virginia fan I really REALLY hope I am wrong about this and that Bennett will be able to take his slow, deliberate style of play and make it work in the ACC, but at this point I can’t see how this happens. I did hear directly from a few basketball players at lunch today and they all say they are staying so we’ll see what happens. This team definitely has the talent and this coach does know what he is doing. Go get a rep tie Coach and let the experiment begin.
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