Virginia Still A Long Ways From Redemption

Under ordinary circumstances, a 13-0 record and a convincing win over the No. 9 team in the country would be cause for celebration. Only the 4th ranked Virginia Wahoos are not an ordinary college basketball team.

Yes, unbeaten Virginia beat No. 9 Florida State 65-52 over the weekend in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the final score. But, unfortunately for the Wahoos, they will not rest easy for at least a few more months for one glaring reason. Virginia has an albatross named UMBC wrapped around its neck that simply cannot go away until March Madness. Virginia was shocked by UMBC in the first round of the NCAA’s last year, becoming the first No. 1 seed in tournament history to fall to a 16th seed.

Consider this, when reflecting on this bizarre upset. Under Coach Tony Bennett, Virginia is possibly the best-coached team in the country and plays defense better than anybody in college basketball. Yes, this definitely makes my list of biggest upsets in sports history. In my mind, a 16th seed beating the best defensive team in college basketball was about as likely to happen as the United States hockey team beating the Soviets in the 1980 Winter Olympics.

These days, a Virginia program that is rock solid under the leadership of Bennett, is on a mission like few others in college basketball history. Anything less than a deep run in the NCAA’s will seem like a failure for the Wahoos. Virginia has dominated the ACC’s regular season in recent years, having won three of the past five league titles. To put this in perspective, under Hall of Fame Coach Mike Krzyzewski, Duke has not won an outright ACC regular-season title since 2006. Before the UMBC embarrassment, Virginia lost just one game in the ACC’s regular season before rolling through the conference tournament.

Virginia has good talent but not the personnel of the one-and-done programs like No. 1 Duke, with its handful of high lottery picks. But the Wahoos possess a great equalizer called team defense. Four of the last five seasons, Virginia has led the nation in points allowed, and this season, Bennett’s team is tops once again, yielding just 51.4 points per game.

So why do most basketball pundits have Duke as the team to beat in the ACC? With the way the Wahoos play team defense, I doubt they will lose many games in the ACC and would be surprised if Duke sweeps them. Might not even beat them once. Pretty difficult to bet against Virginia not winning another ACC title.

One of the beauties of the Wahoos’ success is that they keep the game simple. In a college basketball game dominated by pick and roll plays, Virginia defends it one way, with massive 6-10, 250-pound center Jack Salt hedging out hard on screens before sprinting (or perhaps more accurately rumbling) his way back to the basket. Most top-level college teams have a variety of pick and roll coverages, often adjusting to the game being played, but not Virginia. The Wahoos master their one coverage and make it work to perfection against all opponents.

Obviously, Bennett’s teams are known for defense, but Virginia also executes extremely well on the offensive end. Running a blocker-mover motion offense, with designated screeners and cutters, the Wahoos do a great job of finding their best scorers the right shots. Witness the Florida State game, when Virginia set a variety of screens to free-up star shooting guard, Kyle Guy for open 3’s. By halftime, Guy had made all four of his 3-point attempts on his way to 18 points and finished with a game-high 21 points. At one point, ESPN commentator Jimmy Dykes used a play board to draw up the six different ways Guy comes off screens in Virginia’s offense. Good work by Dykes, as I could only imagine how tired Florida State’s defenders must have been having to battle through this buffet of screens, especially with the bulky Salt setting many of them.

Virginia has players that can score at every position, other than Salt, who excels at his role by setting excellent screens and keeping possessions alive on the offensive glass. The Wahoos are known for their methodical offense but they will take the first good shot that comes along. Just ask Florida State, which saw Guy drain 3’s from pretty much everywhere on the floor early in the shot clock. When Virginia fails to find a good shot early in the shot clock, the Wahoos are masterful at finding even a better one with the seconds ticking down. Must have something to do with Bennett’s coaching. Against Florida State, the Wahoos never panicked late in the shot clock and found a way to make surprisingly wide open shots with time expiring. Couple this with Virginia’s suffocating defense on the other end and you have a near perfect formula to demoralize an opponent.

I’ve been making a case for college basketball’s best and most underrated coaches (remember Gonzaga’s Mark Few and Tennessee’s Rick Barnes) all season long. But taking a hard look at what Bennett has accomplished in just his 14 years career as a head coach, you could easily lobby for him as both the most underrated and the best. In the last five ACC seasons, Bennett has a 73-17 record while Hall of Famers Coach K and North Carolina’s Roy Williams are 63-27. Twice in his 10 seasons at Virginia, Bennett has been named National Coach of the Year.

Bennett comes from a great basketball background, having played for his father, Dick Bennett, at Wisconsin-Green Bay (does anybody know he is the all-time NCAA leader in 3-point shooting percentage at .497 and played three seasons for the Charlotte Hornets?) and worked for him as an assistant at Wisconsin and Washington State. The senior Bennett had a great run as a college coach, winning 489 games and leading unheralded Wisconsin to the Final Four in 2000. In this coaching tree, the apple falls just inches away. Bennett was known as a great innovator with his pack-line defense (now used by son Tony) and created the blocker-mover offense.

The junior Bennett showed his chops right away after taking over for his father at Washington State in 2006, leading the Cougars to two NCAA appearances in three seasons. In 2007, he was National Coach of the Year after leading Washington State to its first NCAA appearance in 18 years. Washington State is one of the toughest jobs in the Pac 12 and has not been to the NCAA’s since Bennett departed.

Give Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage credit for making one of the best hires in college basketball history and luring Bennett back east to a job that is a good one, but certainly not tops in the ACC. In this era of college basketball when many programs are doing things the wrong way (need we mention shoe scandal?), Virginia is a pleasant exception under Bennett.

There was plenty to like watching the Wahoos manhandle Florida State, but what impressed me more than anything else was what happened when Florida State scored the game’s final 16 points after trailing by as many as 30 in the second half. At that point, Bennett had the bottom of his roster on the floor, including a walk-on who was once a team manager, and Florida State was full-court pressing. Not exactly the classiest move by Florida State Coach Leonard Hamilton! In this situation, almost any other coach would have removed his bench warmers to save face, but not Bennett, who stayed with his subs the entire way as they struggled to get the ball over half court and saw a huge lead shrink in a matter of minutes. Class act by Bennett all the way around.

All things considered, it will be hard not to root for Virginia and Bennett in the ACC this season. But even more importantly, let’s hope the Wahoos can put the UMBC game to rest with a great run in March Madness.

Overtime Coach-Couch Talk:

The list of unbeatens shrunk to three (Michigan, Virginia, Houston) when Nevada lost for the first time on Saturday to New Mexico. Had some time on my hands last week and watched the first half of Nevada’s win over Utah State. In his fourth season at Nevada, Eric Mussleman has surprisingly taken an unknown program to national status. Mussleman is getting it done through the transfer route and has a talented team that has the ability to make a strong run in the NCAA’s. Last season, the Pack advanced to the Sweet 16 and were a one-point loss to Loyola Chicago away from the Elite Eight. Nevada’s four leading scorers are transfers — forward brothers Cody and Calib Martin and guards Jordan Caroline and Jazz Johnson. The Martin brothers were ESPN Top 100 prospects coming out of high school at Oak Hill Academy and played at NC State before transferring to Nevada. The Pack are long and athletic and run with the best in college basketball while averaging 82 points. Which is impressive considering they are averaging just 9.7 turnovers playing at such a high speed. Mussleman has clearly brought energy to the Pack program and has an intensity on the sidelines that was interesting to watch in the Utah State game. For most of the first half, he was all over the refs. At one point during a media timeout, he even chased down one of the refs underneath the basket. Surely would have been a technical foul if the ref had not been in the restricted area!