- After pining for weeks (make that years) for Tubby Smith, Jerry Radcliffe is ready to annoint the new coach as the next Mike Krzyzewski. http://www.dailyprogress.com/cdp/sports/columnists/ratcliffe_on/article/experts_give_uva_decision_top_marks/38015/
- Doug Doughty is reserving judgment. http://blogs.roanoke.com/rtblogs/insiders/2009/03/30/observations-on-the-new-coach/#more-996
- Jeff White, like most alums, was looking for a bigger name. http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/sports/college/college_basketball/article/CAVS31_20090330-223703/244798/
Now, onto my thoughts:
I like that UVA simply didn't chase names (although I'm sure they made a run at Tubby). Bennett comes from good coaching pedigree, was coach of the year just two years ago (sound familiar?), played in the league, which should help with recruiting, and was chased by much bigger names than UVA in the past few years. And he won in Pullman, a dumptruck of a college basketball town, so you know he can coach.
But I do have concerns:
(1) Bennett has never coached east of Wisconsin, and thus will have to develop from scratch the recruiting contacts on the East Coast (specifically in Hampton Roads and the I-95 Corridor) that he will need to succeed at UVA.
(2) His teams play SLOW. Now maybe that was dictated by personnel, but his Dad's teams played the same way at Wisconsin. 62-57 games don't usually fill up 15,000 seat stadiums and draw top level recruits.
(3) If they were looking for a big name to create buzz (although I personally thought this was an overrated criteria), they didn't do it. While Bennett is well-regarded within basketball insider circles, he does not bring the instant cred that a Tubby Smith or Jeff Capel would have brought. Whether they could have gotten the buzz-worthy coach is another matter, but the fan-base was looking for a big name. At the very least, the administration did a poor job of managing expectations.
(4) I feel like I've seen this movie before. Despite all of the talk I heard from some about not wanting to go the mid-major route again, UVA never actually has. Instead, they've hired from major conference schools, albeit traditionally smaller players in those major conferences: Gillen from Providence (Big East), Leitao from DePaul (Big East), and now Bennett from WSU (Pac-10). In the first two cases, Virginia saw a modest improvement by year two, but three or four years in, it was clear that the improvement was not sustainable. So let's assume Bennett can coach. He takes Leitao's players, gets to a tournament or two, and then when forced to play with his own kids, he takes a step back, just like Leitao did when he didn't have Gillen's players.
(5) Is this a long-term solution? Even if he's great, you're talking about a guy with midwest roots whose only head coaching job was on the left coast. I know its sacrilege to suggest that someone would leave the vaunted ACC, and for us east-coasters who grew up on ACC basketball, it doesn't make sense to do so. But his dream conference/job might be somewhere else. Who's to say he doesn't leave for a big-time job in the Big Ten or Pac-10 somewhere down the road? I don't think anyone wants UVA to turn into a stepping-stone job, but by picking a guy with no links to the University, much less the East Coast, we might have set ourselves up for that possibility.
I guess we'll see...
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