Virginia men’s basketball head coach Tony Bennett retires

Virginia men’s basketball head coach Tony Bennett retires

Virginia men’s basketball head coach Tony Bennett has retired, just weeks before the start of the 2024-25 college basketball season tips off, Sports Illustrated insider Pat Forde was among the first to report Thursday.

One of the most eerie part about this was ESPN college basketball insider Jeff Borzello asking Tony Bennett about why so many people thought he could be the next Jay Wright in terms of retiring — which was also very unexpected, at the time. Here was an excerpt of his response, per Borzello:

“And when you feel it’s time, like Jay did, like [Mike Krzyzewski], maybe [Nick Saban], it’s their choice,” he said. “And you can sit here and complain and gripe. Or you have a decision to make. Either you try to do it in your way or you get to make that decision. So I think Jay Wright probably foresaw the where this is going.”

Bennett, 55, leaves behind a storied legacy at Virginia. After all, he’s a championship head coach who won a National Title in 2018-19 with eight combined ACC Titles and three National Coach of the Year awards in 15 seasons with the Cavaliers.

He did, however, put the program in a very difficult position just weeks before the season starts. There hasn’t been a formal announcement for the interim, but The Hoop Herald reported that associate head coach Ron Sanchez, who went 72-78 in five seasons at Charlotte, will be the interim. Sanchez has spent two different stints with bennett at Virginia.

According to insider Jeff Goodman of Field of 68, Bennett’s retirement wasn’t a health issue, though he cited there could be other reasons–suggesting it may be due to the changing of the landscape of college basketball.

Of course, it was Bennett’s decision in the end, and he reserves the right to choose whenever he wants to hang it up–but it’s poor timing for literally everyone else involved. No two ways about it. Sanchez (assuming he’s the head coach) can’t assemble his own staff and will have a very limited amount of time to dramatically adjust any schemes or embed his own culture; players, by rule, have a 30-day transfer window , but it’s way too late in the offseason for any other program to snag these players, hypothetically, rendering a transfer pointless.

Virginia has a solid winning history, but no head coach (Terry Holland, Jeff Jones, Pete Gillen, Dave Leitao) brought it to the heights that Bennett did. While the end of his tenure left a lot to be desired, he’s the best coach in program history, barring none.

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