Former University of Virginia men's basketball coach Tony Bennett sat down on Friday and explained his decision to suddenly retire.
"The hardest thing to say is when I looked at myself and I realized I'm no longer the, no longer the best coach to lead this program in this current environment," an emotional Bennett said. "And if you're going to do it, you got to be all in. You've got to have everything. And if you do it half-hearted, it's not fair to the university and those young men, so you know, and looking at it, that's what made me step down."
The environment to which Bennett referred was the seismic changes college basketball, and college athletics in general, have gone through over the last few years including paying players to choose their school and allowing athletes to transfer from one college to another without missing a season of competition.
"There's still a way in this environment," Bennett, who won a national championship at Virginia in 2019, said. "There's a way ... to do it and hold to our values, but it's complicated, and to admit honestly that I'm not equipped to do this is humbling."
"I think it's right for players, student-athletes, to receive revenue. Please don't mistake me. I do. I think it is. But the game and college athletics is not in a healthy spot. It's not. And there needs to be change, and it's not going to go back," he said. "I think I was equipped to do the job here the old way, that's who I am, and that's how it was, and my staff has buoyed me along to get to this point. But there needs to be change."
Bennett said college basketball lacked restrictions and some restrictions were sorely needed.
"There has to be a restriction on the salary pool that teams can spend. There has to be transfer regulation restrictions. There has to be some limits on the agent involvement to these young guys. And there are good agents, and they're bad agents, and they're driving some of this stuff that we're in," he said. "I worry a lot about the mental health of the student-athletes as all this stuff comes down, and it's sometimes when you're in it, you have to step away. And maybe I can be an advocate for the student-athletes and the coaches to get the changes. [Virginia] is a place that will not compromise and do it the right way. And I wish I could, it could be me, but it can't, and when you know in your heart It's the time you have to give it away."
In his 15 seasons as the coach in Charlottesville, he made 10 NCAA Tournament appearances.
He went 364-136 at Virginia, a tenure that included two ACC Tournament titles and six regular-season conference championships. He was voted national coach of the year three times.
Bennett, 55, left Washington State to take over at Virginia ahead of the 2009-10 season, charged with resurrecting a program that had reached just one NCAA Tournament in eight seasons.
He got the Cavaliers back to March Madness by his third season as he installed a defensive-oriented system that included slow-tempo offense that led to plenty of low scores and had Virginia fans roaring in approval at forced shot-clock violations.
The peak came in a run of six straight tournament bids from 2014-19, with four of those coming as a No. 1 seed. Yet that time also included an incredible one-year span of a crushing on-court humiliation, followed by the highest of highs.
In 2018, the Cavaliers were the top overall seed in the tournament, then they became the first-ever No. 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed, shocked by UMBC. Awkwardly, he was named The Associated Press national men’s coach of the year weeks later, an honor secured primarily on regular-season success.
But Bennett handled it with a deft, steady and reassuring touch, telling his players they had a chance to write their own ending to that terrible moment and that everyone — family, friends and critics — was waiting to see how they would respond. That next year, the Cavaliers went on to hold off Texas Tech in overtime to win the program’s lone NCAA championship in an all-time redemptive moment in tournament history coming amid multiple white-knuckle moments.
Bennett savored that finish in Minneapolis, emphatically slapping the sticker bearing Virginia’s name on the champion line of the bracket during the trophy presentation. After players had cut down the nets and danced amid confetti, they all gathered on stage to gaze at videoboards high above them as the “One Shining Moment” highlight montage that is a tournament-capping tradition began to play.
Fittingly, the humble Bennett took in the scene from the background, leaning against a railing at the stage’s edge while holding one of the nets.
That proved to be the apex of Bennett’s time at Virginia. He got the Cavaliers back to the NCAAs in three of his final four seasons, but the Cavaliers never won another tournament game. Along the way, questions grew as to whether his methodical playing philosophy could work as well in a time of veteran players moving freely between schools through the transfer portal.
In March, the Cavaliers managed only 42 points in a 25-point loss to Colorado State in the First Four. But Bennett was back at the ACC’s preseason media days last week in Charlotte, not far from the site of the UMBC upset, talking about plans for the upcoming season.
This story was originally published by Scripps News Richmond.
