The Tony Bennett welcome tour

On the first day Division I men’s basketball coaches were allowed back on the road to evaluate prospects this month, Tony Bennett was in Hampton.

The University of Virginia’s new coach wasn’t there to scout players Monday. The classes of 2010, ’11 and ’12 were elsewhere. Bennett traveled to Tidewater to introduce himself to members of the Virginia High School Coaches Association.

He saw some familiar faces at the VHSCA’s annual clinic, but most of the coaches he’d never met.

“I told them this is a very important day for us to be out on the road recruiting, but I thought it was more important for me to be there,” Bennett said Tuesday from Cincinnati.

To the group, Bennett spoke some about his coaching philosophy and his system’s defensive principles. Mainly, though, “I talked about how important what they do is to us,” he said.

“There’s a great value in being a high school coach and the impact they have. They’re with the kids on a daily basis, whether they have a huge role in the decision-making process [in recruiting] or not. My high school coach had an impact on me, and I talked about that. Some of the things he taught me I still use today, and my dad still gets calls from players he coached in high school.”

Bennett, whose uncle also is a former high school coach, had few ties to this state before taking the UVa job. He played for his father, Dick, at Wisconsin-Green Bay and coached under him at Wisconsin and Washington State.