Virginia’s Tony Bennett cites state of game for retirement

Former Virginia males’s basketball coach Tony Bennett, who formally introduced his retirement Friday morning, pointed to the “present atmosphere” in faculty sports activities as one of many driving forces behind his abrupt choice to step down with the Cavaliers.

“The toughest factor to say is once I checked out myself and I spotted I am now not the very best coach to guide this program on this present atmosphere,” Bennett mentioned at his retirement information convention. “If you are going to do it, you gotta be all-in. When you do it halfhearted, it is not truthful to the college and people younger males. So in taking a look at it, that is what made me step down.”

Bennett, 55, has lengthy bemoaned the path of school athletics and elevated emphasis on the switch portal and identify, picture and likeness.

“I feel it is proper for student-athletes to obtain income. Please do not mistake me,” he mentioned Friday. “The sport and faculty athletics will not be in a wholesome spot. It isn’t. And there must be change, and it is not going to return. I feel I used to be geared up to do the job right here the previous manner. That is who I’m.

“It should be nearer to an expert mannequin. There’s obtained to be collective bargaining. There needs to be a restriction on the wage pool. There needs to be switch regulation restrictions. There needs to be some limits on the agent involvement to those younger guys. … And I fear loads concerning the psychological well being of the student-athletes as all these items comes down.”

Bennett mentioned he initially thought of stepping away on the finish of the 2023-24 season, however he and his workers instantly started the rebuilding course of and he signed a contract extension in June that might have stored him in Charlottesville till 2030.

Final weekend, nonetheless, when the college had its fall break and Bennett and his spouse, Laurel, went away, the retirement ideas solidified.

“Simply sort of processed about what the longer term can be,” Bennett mentioned. “And that is the place I sort of got here to the belief that I am unable to do that. It isn’t truthful to those guys and to this establishment that I really like a lot to proceed on when you recognize you are not the precise man for the job.”

Affiliate head coach Ron Sanchez will take over this system for the season. Sanchez was on Bennett’s workers from 2009 to 2018 earlier than leaving to grow to be the top coach at Charlotte for 5 seasons. In June 2023, Sanchez all of the sudden stepped down because the 49ers head coach to return to Virginia and grow to be Bennett’s affiliate head coach.

“I at all times hoped that when my time was accomplished, whether or not it was Ron or Jason [Williford], the 2 affiliate head coaches, that somebody would take this over,” Bennett mentioned, “as a result of it means it is in a superb place.”

In Bennett’s 15 seasons in cost, he guided the Cavaliers to unprecedented and constant success. He’s a two-time coach of the yr who led Virginia to the nationwide championship in 2019, additionally profitable six ACC regular-season titles and two league match titles.

“I want I may have gone longer. I actually do,” Bennett mentioned. “But it surely was time, and I would not have accomplished it if I did not suppose we had the precise group of younger males and the precise workers to guide them ahead on this manner. I feel I might have extra regrets staying longer and never having the ability to be all-in and unsure in giving every little thing to those guys than stepping away with perhaps just a little extra power within the tank. That will be the larger remorse I might have.”

Although Virginia discovered itself within the nationwide dialog most of the time underneath Bennett, the Cavaliers hadn’t received an NCAA match recreation since their nationwide title run in 2019. They had been picked fifth within the ACC preseason ballot launched Wednesday.

“I do know you get to a degree typically when profitable is a aid greater than a celebration and dropping sticks with you, and it is a ache,” Bennett mentioned. “That stuff has began to take ahold.”

Earlier than taking on at Virginia in 2009, Bennett led Washington State to 2 NCAA match appearances in his three seasons because the coach in Pullman. The Cougars had back-to-back 26-win seasons in 2006-07 and 2007-08, reaching the Candy 16 in 2008.

He had spent the earlier three seasons as an assistant coach at Washington State after 4 seasons at Wisconsin teaching underneath his father, Dick Bennett, and Bo Ryan.

Bennett performed for his father at Inexperienced Bay, ending his profession because the Mid-Continent Convention’s main profession scorer and the NCAA’s main profession 3-point shooter. He was chosen by the Charlotte Hornets within the 1992 NBA draft and spent three seasons with the franchise.

Bennett’s retirement follows an analogous sample to 2 of his mentors. Bennett’s father retired from Wisconsin three video games into the 2000-01 season, changed on an interim foundation by assistant coach Brad Soderberg, who had been on Bennett’s workers at Virginia. Wisconsin in the end employed Ryan as a substitute of giving Soderberg the job. When Ryan retired from the Badgers, he did it 12 video games into the 2015-16 marketing campaign.

Throughout Friday’s information convention, Bennett mentioned he may look to be an advocate for student-athletes and coaches in at the moment’s ever-changing faculty sports activities panorama.

“I adjusted some,” Bennett mentioned. “However you’ll be able to’t battle towards your self.”