By STEPHEN WHYNO and AARON BEARD
Virginia basketball coach Tony Bennett by no means chased the highlight. That included along with his beautiful and abrupt determination to retire efficient instantly, introduced on the eve of the beginning of the season.
This system stated Thursday the 55-year-old Bennett will announce his retirement at a information convention on Friday at 11 a.m. EDT. No causes got for his determination, which was unveiled merely in a web-based publish by this system months after he had signed a contract extension to maintain him within the job by way of at the very least 2030.
It got here per week after Bennett appeared on the Atlantic Coast Convention’s preseason media days, and with the Cavaliers’ opener towards Campbell looming at dwelling on Nov. 6.
Bennett led the Cavaliers to the nationwide title in 2019. In his 15 seasons because the coach in Charlottesville, he made 10 NCAA Event appearances.
He went 364-136 at Virginia, a tenure that included two ACC Event titles and 6 regular-season convention championships. He was voted AP nationwide coach of the 12 months twice, as soon as at Washington State in 2007 and at Virginia in 2018.
Bennett left Pullman for Charlottesville in a cross-country transfer forward of the 2009-10 season, charged with resurrecting a program that was notably a daily Nineteen Eighties winner with 7-foot-4 Ralph Sampson however had reached only one NCAA Event in eight seasons. He received the Cavaliers again to March Insanity by his third season as he put in a defensive-oriented system that included slow-tempo offense that led to loads of low scores and had Virginia followers roaring in approval at pressured shot-clock violations.
The height got here in a run of six straight match bids from 2014-19, with 4 of these coming as a No. 1 seed. But that point additionally included an unimaginable one-year span of a crushing on-court humiliation, adopted by the very best of highs.
In 2018, the Cavaliers had been the highest total seed within the match, then they became the first-ever No. 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed, shocked by UMBC. Awkwardly, he was named AP nationwide males’s coach of the 12 months weeks later, an honor secured totally on regular-season success.
However Bennett handled it with a deft, steady and reassuring touch grounded in his religion, telling his wounded players who even heard death threats that they had an opportunity to write down their very own ending to that horrible second and that everybody — household, buddies and critics — was ready to see how they might reply. That subsequent 12 months, the Cavaliers went on to carry off Texas Tech in extra time to win this system’s lone NCAA championship in an all-time redemptive second in match historical past coming amid a number of white-knuckle moments.
Bennett savored that end in Minneapolis, emphatically slapping the sticker bearing Virginia’s title on the champion line of the bracket throughout the trophy presentation. After gamers had reduce down the nets and danced amid confetti, all of them gathered on stage to stare upon videoboards excessive above them because the “One Shining Second” spotlight montage that could be a tournament-capping custom started to play.
Fittingly, the common-or-garden Bennett took within the scene from the background, leaning towards a railing on the stage’s edge whereas holding one of many nets.
4 years later, when Purdue grew to become the second workforce to fall in a 16-vs-1 upset, Bennett texted Boilermakers coach Matt Painter.
“Matt is without doubt one of the finest coaches we’ve received within the faculty recreation, he’s a person of character,” Bennett instructed the AP in February. “And never many can say, apart from me: I’ve felt that ache. … So I simply wished to inform him, ‘In the event you ever need to speak, I’m right here. I feel the world of you and hopefully your story is similar as ours.’”
It very practically was. Purdue made all of it the way in which to the NCAA title recreation earlier than falling in UConn’s remaining step to a repeat title.
Nonetheless, the 2019 crown proved to be the apex of Bennett’s time at Virginia. He received the Cavaliers again to the NCAAs in three of his remaining 4 seasons, however the Cavaliers by no means gained one other match recreation. Alongside the way in which, questions grew as as to if his methodical taking part in philosophy might work as properly in a time of veteran gamers transferring freely between faculties by way of the switch portal.
In March, the Cavaliers managed solely 42 factors in a 25-point loss to Colorado State within the First 4. However Bennett was again on the ACC’s preseason media days like traditional in Charlotte, not removed from the location of the UMBC upset, speaking about plans for an upcoming season that had the Cavaliers picked to complete fifth within the expanded 18-team league.
“I feel it’s important to have a look at your mannequin and regulate it a bit bit,” Bennett stated then, providing no indication of what was to come back Thursday.
As a substitute, Bennett — who was the ACC’s lone energetic coach with an NCAA title — grew to become the newest high-profile league coach to name it a profession of late, following Corridor of Famers like North Carolina’s Roy Williams in 2021, Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski in 2022 and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim in 2023 out the door.
“Tony Bennett embodies the whole lot a high-quality basketball coach ought to be,” Florida State coach Leonard Hamilton stated in a press release. “He constructed robust relationships along with his gamers, labored seamlessly along with his administration, and earned deep respect nationwide — not simply as a basketball coach, however as an individual of nice character and sophistication. His presence will likely be deeply missed.”
Bennett’s first head-coaching tenure was a three-year stint with Washington State, the place he gained 69 video games and twice reached the NCAAs, together with a Candy 16 look in 2008. Earlier than that, the son of former faculty coach Dick Bennett was on his father’s workers at Washington State and Wisconsin.
He coached eventual NBA All-Star and four-time world champion Klay Thompson in his remaining season at Washington State, then coached quite a few future NBA gamers like Joe Harris, Malcolm Brogdon, DeAndre Hunter and Ty Jerome.
Bennett performed in faculty for his father at Wisconsin-Inexperienced Bay, then was a second-round choose of the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets in 1992 and spent three seasons with the workforce.
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Get ballot alerts and updates on the AP Prime 25 all through the season. Enroll here. AP faculty basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball
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