Year 10 Off To Good Start For Tony Bennett, Virginia

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Tony 10 is underway.

Tony Bennett opened his 10th season at Virginia in style on Tuesday night as the fifth-ranked Cavaliers blew out visiting Towson, 73-42.

There was no reason to sweat this one. The Wahoos have always been golden in season openers, winning 20 of the last 21. Their own hiccup was a loss on the road at George Mason in 2012.

Bennett, who said he is more driven than ever to get UVa’s program to a Final Four, to a national title, was noticeably more unfettered than usual.

Tony has never really liked coaching with a tie, and so he didn’t, likely a favorable ruling from Carla Williams, the new athletic director. He was sporting a snazzy pocket square, though.

He joked around with media, unable to read the smaller than customary boxscore and getting needled about needing glasses, which he said he has some.

If you think this guy’s life was ruined by last March’s upset loss to UMBC, think again. Near the end of his presser, Bennett happened to glance at a television in the press room and noticed what no one else had.

UMBC was playing against Marquette in its season opener, right there live as Bennett fielded his final question from media.

“I want to thank Bach for putting the UMBC game on for me in my postgame press conference,” Bennett said, drawing laughter from the press corps. “That’s really great of our sports information director.”

Bennett never misses a chance to take a friendly poke at Erich Bacher, the basketball media relations director, and his longtime childhood friend.

It was as relaxed as us media types have seen Bennett in a postgame in quite a while, and yes, that’s a good thing.

There were plenty of good reasons for the coach’s mood.

Let’s start with defense. The mood would not have been as light had the Cavaliers been off their game in that department.

Towson shot 28.6 percent from the field (6-21), had no assists. That’s not a typo. Zero, zip, nada. The Terriers went almost nine full minutes in the first half without scoring a bucket and even longer without a field goal toward the end of the second half.

Still, there were enough errors to give the coach something to harp about come the next practice.

“We had some good stands,” Bennett said. “At times we played some decent defense, then gave up offensive rebounds. I thought [Towson’s] physicality was a bit much for us. They touched the paint a little bit too much for my liking. No matter how good your defense is, if you can’t limit them to one shot, then it’s not good defense. That became a problem for us.”

Everyone who follows Virginia basketball knows that Tony uses most of his early season games to experiment with lineups, create chemistry, reveal strengths and weaknesses, and to observe how his team reacts to opposing styles of play.

In this opener, Bennett threw everyone a bit of a curve by using more zone press and on-ball screens that most of us could remember.

“Just looking at different things with different lineups and trying to find what will be successful for us,” Bennett said. “We’re not going to change but you have to look at adjustments and see what you can do.

“It was OK,” the coach explained. “Couple of times got us a bucket or maybe killed a little clock in the three-quarter. The long ball screens, I think those are things you’re always looking at in the offseason. With guys like Kihei (Clark) and Ty (Jerome), who are good off ball screens, there’s some effectiveness for them.”

Speaking of Clark, Bennett had to be pleased with his new toys, the pesky freshman point guard from Cali, and with Alabama transfer Braxton Key, a near clone of De’Andre Hunter.

In his first taste of college basketball, Clark registered six assists and four points, and took over at the point at times, allowing Jerome to do what Jerome does best: shoot 3-point daggers at the opposing team. On this night, Jerome had half a dozen 3’s and led all scorers with 20 points.

Then there was Key, who fit so comfortably into the starting lineup, it was almost like he had been there all along. The forward clocked 21 minutes, scored seven points and grabbed nine rebounds, some of them coming when both Jack Salt and Mamadie Diakite found early foul trouble.

Both Clark and Key gave us a glimpse of what to expect in the future, and it was good.

Key also was on the floor at the same time as Hunter, who had a double-double (13 and 10), which had to be scary for Towson coach Pat Skerry.

“[Virginia] caught us off guard a little bit, they played small,” Skerry said. “You think big, rugged, physical and that is kind of what we like to play, but I think the versatility of Key and Hunter is going to allow them to make more plays offensively when you get into conference play and scouting gets good and it becomes a half-court game, those guys are both capable shot-makers, they can drive it. [Key] is really good above the half line.”

Bennett revealed that his bigger lineup of Salt, Diakite and Hunter had not been as effective in scrimmages (against defending national champion Villanova and vs. Richmond) as he would have liked, but also hasn’t given up on it either.

Bottom line is Year 10 got off the way Bennett wanted, and Year 9 is now a not-too-distant memory.

“It’s a new year, it’s a new team and it didn’t feel any different to me than other starts of the year,” Bennett said.

He was more excited for Clark, Key, freshman Kody Stattmann, and walk-ons Jayden Nixon and Grant Kersey, all getting their first-ever taste of John Paul Jones Arena and Wahoo basketball.

“That is one of the greatest joys,” Bennett said. “I said ‘be courageous, even if you’re trembling a little bit.’”