A tough road for Bennett

With Virginia’s men’s basketball season opener little more than two weeks away, one would think the fan base would be less than enthusiastic, considering the program is coming off its worst season since they used peach baskets and this edition of Cavaliers were picked to finish 11th in the 12-team ACC.

That’s not the case at all, and there’s one main reason for the enthusiasm: Tony Bennett.

While he hasn’t won a single game, he hasn’t lost one either, so there’s a honeymoon period with Wahoo Nation.

Yet Bennett has charmed those who festoon themselves in orange and blue with his genuine demeanor.

So far, so good

Having stepped foot in Charlottesville around seven months ago, the young coach has pushed all the right buttons, exhibited the proper respect, said all the right things in addition to recruiting his fanny off in bringing in five legitimate prospects that should be signing on the dotted line in the coming days.

Virginia returns nearly its entire team from a year ago, 11 players, in addition to adding three new freshmen. It’s one of those good news, bad news kind of deals.

The good news is that everybody’s back.

The bad news is that everybody’s back.

There’s work to do

UVa finished 10-18 last season, 4-12 in the basketball-rich ACC, and never really established its own identity. It was a team that didn’t shoot well, didn’t play defense and didn’t appear to have much of a basketball IQ.

One noted TV analyst who played and coached the game walked up to this columnist before one of last year’s games and asked, “Where are the players? Virginia doesn’t have ACC-caliber players.”

No argument here, with the exception of the league’s rookie of the year last season, sophomore Sylven Landesberg. There’s hope for a couple of others, but only if they develop.

With all that noted, the ACC shouldn’t be quite as strong this season, so I’m not buying that Virginia will finish the predicted 11th-place as voted upon by media covering the league’s Operation Basketball in Greensboro last Sunday. Sometimes experience can make up for a certain lack of talent, which is what I believe will happen with this UVa team.

Bennett will find out a lot more about his Cavaliers this Sunday when they will scrimmage Marquette twice at John Paul Jones Arena (the scrimmages are closed to the public and to media). He has also scheduled a scrimmage with St. John’s, so those tests will give him a clearer idea of what challenges lie ahead.

It will be the first step in a long journey for Bennett, who hopes to be Virginia’s basketball coach for years to come.

He isn’t about instant results or guaranteeing a winning season out of the blocks. If that happens, so be it. If it doesn’t, no one should get their feathers ruffled.

Remember, Virginia has one — count ’em, one — NCAA tournament win over the last 14 years.

Patience, Wahoos, patience.

Bennett wants to build a program. He knows, and UVa director of athletics Craig Littlepage knows, that it’s going to take three or four years for the new coach to infuse new players with more talent and the ability to run his unique system, although the new fivesome is a great start in that direction.

Does that mean Virginia is going to roll over every year until he gets everything in place? Not at all. Bennett is a competitor and he will battle every night.

When everything is in place, the expectations are that Bennett will make reservations for the big dance most every year.

Some Wahoo fans remember when that was commonplace.