CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — After a fifth consecutive March came and went without Virginia winning a game in the NCAA Tournament, something had to change.
Instead, everything did.
“It’s unprecedented for us to be here,” interim coach Ron Sanchez said during his introduction in October. “But we are.”
“Here” is a Virginia basketball program without coach Tony Bennett, a shift to a more open offensive scheme and an adjustment to a roster remade with transfers. Seven games in, the results have been mixed.
UVA (5-2) won its first three outings under Sanchez — against overmatched Campbell and Coppin State and struggling Villanova — before a step up in competition at the Baha Mar tournament in the Bahamas. That trip delivered a pair of lopsided losses to then-No. 11 Tennessee and then-No. 22 St. John’s.
“We’ve got a young team,” junior guard Isaac McKneely said. “We’ve got a lot of guys new to the system and it’s early in the season, so I’m hoping by January, February we’ll have it figured out.”
The Cavaliers play their first true road game Wednesday at No. 13 Florida in the ACC/SEC Challenge, still very much discovering who they will be. Virginia was already pushing the reset button before Bennett’s surprise retirement less than three weeks before the season. It had reloaded its roster with four scholarship transfers and reworked its offense to be less predictable.
Then came the Bennett bomb. The coach who had elevated the program to new heights and the 2019 NCAA championship was done, frustrated with navigating college basketball in the NIL and transfer portal era. The timing left U-Va. with little choice but to stay the course, promoting Sanchez and giving Bennett’s staff at least one season to prove themselves.
“Like a lot of teams in America, they’re figuring themselves out,” said Manhattan coach John Gallagher, whose team lost to the Cavaliers by nine points last week. “You can’t look at where you are in November. You have to look at where you can be in March. Obviously, Virginia has pieces.”
Sanchez has been working to configure those pieces — through trial and error — into the most cohesive and competent lineup. The past two games, he’s used a three-guard starting lineup with McKneely, Andrew Rohde and Dai Dai Ames in the backcourt.
“I think that where we are right now is probably what we’re settling into,” Sanchez said after a win over Holy Cross.
Having more ball-handlers on the court has helped the Cavaliers cut down on turnovers, which plagued them in the Bahamas. Virginia’s turnover total has dropped from 18 against Tennessee, to 16 against St. John’s, then eight against Manhattan and six against Holy Cross.
The decline, of course, also coincides with a dip in the quality of opponents. Florida, with aggressive guard Will Richard, will provide a stiffer test.
Bennett went 364-136 in 15 seasons in Charlottesville and built the program with defense. His signature pack-line — adapted from the system his father ran at Wisconsin and Washington State — elevated Virginia to an ACC power.
Sanchez worked under both Bennetts at Washington State, was on Tony Bennett’s first staff at Virginia and, during his five seasons as the coach at Charlotte, remained true to the pack-line, which comes with a learning curve.
“The guys that are on the floor, I do believe that they have a grasp of it,” Sanchez said. “Now, understanding it and executing it at a really high level are two different things.”
In past seasons, elite and tenacious on-ball defenders gave the defense a disruptive presence, working as what Bennett always described as the “tip of the spear.” Florida State transfer Jalen Warley — a long and athletic veteran defensive force — was expected to fill that role, but he left the team after Bennett’s announcement and is expected to transfer to Gonzaga.
Virginia also doesn’t have a lockdown perimeter defender.
If defense was Bennett’s calling card, offense was his albatross. To ensure his team could get back and set defensively, Bennett ran one of the nation’s slowest offenses, deliberately working for high-quality shots and often using most of the shot clock.
Since 2019, the Cavaliers slid from efficient to ineffective on that end of the floor. Bennett, Sanchez and the staff spent the offseason reworking the offense to get the ball up the court faster and give players more opportunities to read defenses and exploit matchups.
Through seven games, the Cavaliers still play with the slowest tempo of any major conference team, haven’t established a consistent inside presence and lack a true drive-and-kick penetrating guard, another role Warley was expected to fill.
That’s left Virginia heavily reliant on 3-pointers. Through seven games, UVA has averaged 21.7 attempted 3s per game, and 8.4 makes. Those numbers are both up from last season’s averages of 18.1 and 6.5.
Sanchez hopes the three-guard lineup will help open up the offense. He also likes the skills of San Diego State transfer wing Elijah Saunders.
“Elijah’s three-level scoring is really important to the future of this season,” Sanchez said.
Last Friday, for the first time since his retirement, Bennett took in a game, watching from a suite at John Paul Jones Arena as Virginia beat Holy Cross. He sat on the edge of his seat, pumped his fist in big moments and threw his hands in the air at miscues.
Down on the bench, his successor did much of the same, but also made sure he used each moment to teach something to his players.
“I talk a lot about shared experiences,” Sanchez said. “You have to go through these things in order to come out on the other side. You can’t navigate this, you can’t get better unless you travel the road. This tough road is required.”
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